About the work
Domenico Cimarosa set Pietro Metastasio's „Artaserse“, a libretto composed many times since 1730, for the royal house in Turin. It premiered on 26 December 1784 at the Teatro Regio.
Plot
The Persian general Artabano secretly murders King Serse at night and turns the king's sons against each other, so that Artaserse has his brother Dario killed as the supposed regicide. Only when Artabano is caught in a second attempt on Artaserse's life does the truth emerge; Artaserse pardons him with exile and marries Artabano's daughter Semira, while his friend Arbace is finally allowed to marry Serse's daughter Mandane.
Cultural significance
Metastasio's text had been one of the most frequently set librettos of the 18th century since Leonardo Vinci's 1730 premiere. Cimarosa's version was written during his productive years moving between Rome, Naples and Turin in the 1780s, a few years before he moved to the Russian imperial court in 1787.