About the work
Dramma per musica in three acts by Tommaso Traetta after Pietro Metastasio's libretto, first performed in autumn 1757 at the Teatro San Moisè in Venice. Metastasio's 1724 text, with well over 60 settings into the nineteenth century, is among the most frequently set opera librettos of all.
Plot
The Carthaginian queen Didone welcomes the shipwrecked Trojan hero Enea and falls in love with him. Enea must nonetheless leave her to fulfil his divine destiny of founding a new realm in Italy. Abandoned by Enea and pressed by the Numidian king Iarba, who wants to force her into marriage, Didone finally throws herself into the flames of her burning city.
Cultural significance
Traetta's setting dates from his early years as an established opera composer and was staged in several Italian cities. Didone's downfall was a fixture of the opera seria repertoire, also set by composers such as Sarro, Hasse, Jommelli and later Mercadante.