About the work
Ezio is an opera seria by Christoph Willibald Gluck to a libretto by Pietro Metastasio. It premiered during Carnival 1750 at the Divadlo v Kotcích (New Theatre) in Prague; in 1763 Gluck produced a revised version for Vienna that reuses about half the music of the Prague original.
Plot
After defeating Attila and the Huns, the Roman general Ezio returns to Rome, where Emperor Valentiniano regards him as a rival for the love of Fulvia. Fulvia's father Massimo conspires against the emperor and lays the blame on Ezio. When an uprising breaks out, Ezio saves the emperor's life, Massimo is exposed, and Ezio is given Fulvia's hand in marriage.
Cultural significance
The 1750 Prague version is still a full opera seria with no trace of Gluck's later reform ideas; only the 1763 Vienna revision falls within the period of his emerging innovations. Metastasio's libretto had previously been set by composers including Porpora, Hasse, and Handel.