About the work
Catone in Utica is an opera seria in three acts by Leonardo Vinci to the first opera text Pietro Metastasio wrote for Rome. It premiered on 13 January 1728 at Count d'Alibert's theatre (the Teatro delle Dame) in Rome, again with an all-male cast. It marked the start of the influential partnership between Vinci and Metastasio.
Plot
After his defeat by Caesar, the Roman senator Cato refuses to submit to the victor, even though his daughter Marzia loves Caesar and pleads for reconciliation. Cato chooses freedom over life under tyranny and takes his own life with his sword at the end, while Caesar mourns his former friend.
Cultural significance
The onstage suicide met with resistance from Roman audiences, since suicide was considered a mortal sin in the Papal States; Metastasio subsequently wrote a gentler second ending that most later composers adopted. Vinci's original 1728 setting, however, still carries the unmitigated tragic conclusion.