About the work
Bajazet is the title under which Niccolò Jommelli set the libretto Tamerlano by Agostino Piovene, a three-act tragedia per musica that was set to music almost 40 times by 1810, beginning with Francesco Gasparini's setting in Venice in 1711. Jommelli's version premiered on 26 December 1753 at the Teatro Regio in Turin.
Plot
The defeated Ottoman sultan Bajazet and his daughter Asteria have been taken captive by the Tartar ruler Tamerlano. Asteria loves the Greek prince Andronico, but Tamerlano desires her too and breaks off his own engagement to Irene to pursue her. To save her father, Asteria feigns consent to marry Tamerlano while secretly planning his murder; when her plan fails and disgrace looms, Bajazet takes his own life. Only then does Tamerlano relent and release Asteria to marry Andronico.
Cultural significance
Jommelli's Turin setting belongs to a tradition of nearly 40 settings of the libretto composed between Gasparini's 1711 premiere and the early nineteenth century.