About the work
Eraclito e Democrito is a commedia per musica in two acts by Antonio Salieri to a libretto by Giovanni De Gamerra. It was first performed on 13 August 1795 at the Burgtheater in Vienna.
Plot
Pulcheria, daughter of Pilemone, loves Arconte, whom she takes to be the philosopher Democritus, while the solemn thinker Heraclitus observes the ensuing comedy of mistaken identity and courtship with sceptical detachment.
Cultural significance
Contemporary accounts describe only modest success, with fewer than twenty performances in Vienna, though the opera was staged again in Berlin in 1796.