About the work
Didone abbandonata is an opera seria in three acts by Gian Francesco de Majo to Pietro Metastasio's first independent opera text, which received more than fifty settings between 1724 and the end of the eighteenth century. De Majo's version premiered on 26 December 1769 at the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice, less than twelve months before his death.
Plot
Following Virgil's Aeneid, Enea must leave the Carthaginian queen Didone in order to found a new empire in Italy at the gods' command; meanwhile the Moorish king Iarba tries to win the despairing Didone for himself. In the end Didone is left alone and, broken by Enea's departure, takes her own life.
Cultural significance
Metastasio wrote the text in 1724, in the household of his patron Marianna Bulgarelli, as his first opera libretto; it was first set by Domenico Sarro and later by, among others, Vinci, Porpora, Galuppi and Hasse. De Majo's late setting came from his final major Venice commission, shortly before tuberculosis forced his definitive return to Naples.