About the work
Tragedia per musica in three acts by Tommaso Traetta to a libretto by Marco Coltellini after Sophocles' tragedy, first performed on 31 October (Julian) / 11 November 1772 (Gregorian) at the Imperial court theatre in Saint Petersburg, where Traetta had served as Catherine II's court composer since 1768. Coltellini's text turns Sophocles' tragic ending into a reconciliatory one.
Plot
After the mutually fatal duel between the warring brothers Eteocle and Polinice, King Creonte decrees that only Eteocle may be buried. By night Antigona secretly burns her brother Polinice's body and is condemned to death for it. In the third act Creonte repents his verdict and pardons her, and the opera closes with the wedding of Antigona and her beloved Emone.
Cultural significance
Unlike most settings of Coltellini's text, Traetta loosens the strict da capo form and gives the chorus unusual weight; listeners have heard in it a more 'human' tone that already points toward Mozart. After its premiere Antigona was forgotten for nearly two centuries until the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino revived it in 1962; it has since become one of Traetta's most frequently staged works in German-speaking theatres, including the Vienna Kammeroper and Theater Osnabrück.