About the work
Das unterbrochene Opferfest (The Interrupted Sacrifice) is a heroic-comic opera in two acts by Peter von Winter, with a libretto by Franz Xaver Huber based on novels by Jean-François Marmontel about the Spanish conquest of Peru. It premiered on 14 June 1796 at the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna.
Plot
The Englishman Murney has freed the Inca from Portuguese rule and lives near the Inca princess Myrrha and his first wife Elvira, believed dead. A jealous general draws both women into an intrigue that nearly costs Murney his life at the sun priests' sacrificial festival. Only the conspirators' confession saves him, and the instigator is banished rather than executed.
Cultural significance
The opera made Winter, alongside Mozart and Weigl, one of the few German opera composers of his generation to achieve pan-European fame; it remained on German stages until 1917. Its popularity is also reflected in Beethoven's 1799 piano variations on the song "Kind, willst du ruhig schlafen" (WoO 75).