About the work
Catone in Utica is an opera seria in three acts by Gian Francesco de Majo to Pietro Metastasio's much-set libretto about the power struggle between Cato the Younger and Julius Caesar. De Majo's setting opened the 1763 carnival season on 26 December 1762 at the Teatro Regio in Turin.
Plot
In Utica, the last stronghold of the Roman republic, Caesar demands that Cato accept peace at the price of submission. Cato's daughter Marzia still loves Caesar but is promised to the Numidian prince Arbace, Cato's ally; a plot to assassinate Caesar is foiled, yet the conflict between the two men remains unresolved — in Metastasio's original version it ends with Cato's suicide on stage.
Cultural significance
The hero's on-stage death had caused a stir at the libretto's first setting by Leonardo Vinci in Rome in 1728, prompting Metastasio to write a gentler alternative ending as well. Between 1728 and 1791 the text was set anew around 30 times, including by Vivaldi, Hasse and Paisiello; de Majo's version dates from his productive Turin and Rome years of the early 1760s.