About the work
Pastoral opera by Reinhard Keiser to a libretto by Johann Ulrich König, first performed in April 1712 at the Theater am Gänsemarkt in Hamburg. Keiser revised the work for a revival in 1724; the score of the 1712 premiere is largely lost.
Plot
The huntress-goddess Diana has forbidden love among her followers. The god of love, Cupid, takes revenge by entangling several of her nymphs and shepherds in amorous confusion and mistaken identities. Only after many complications does Diana relent and lift her ban on love.
Cultural significance
At the 1724 revival, the composer's eleven-year-old daughter Sophie Keiser made her stage debut in the title role. The opera is one of the many mythological pastorals with which Keiser shaped the repertoire of Hamburg's Gänsemarkt opera house for decades.