About the work
Dramma musicale in a prologue and three acts by Francesco Cavalli to a libretto by Giacinto Andrea Cicognini, loosely based on the legend of Jason and the Golden Fleece. It premiered on 5 January 1649 at the Teatro San Cassiano in Venice.
Plot
Sent by his uncle to fetch the Golden Fleece from Colchis, Jason secretly abandons his pregnant lover Isifile on Lemnos and becomes involved with Colchis’s queen Medea without at first realising her identity. After complications involving a botched assassination in which the wrong woman is thrown into the sea, and Isifile’s arrival, Jason returns to her repentant while Medea is paired off with King Egeo.
Cultural significance
With roughly two dozen documented productions by 1681, Giasone was the most frequently staged opera of the 17th century and helped establish the clear separation of recitative and aria that shaped the genre’s later development. The Accademia dell’Arcadia later singled the work out, for its mix of comedy and tragedy, as emblematic of "Venetian decadence".