About the work
Ginevra di Scozia is an opera in two acts by Johann Simon Mayr to a libretto by Gaetano Rossi. Rossi based the plot on Antonio Salvi's play Ginevra, principessa di Scozia, itself drawn from cantos five and six of Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando furioso. The opera premiered on 21 April 1801 at the newly built Teatro Nuovo in Trieste, an event that also marked the theatre's opening.
Plot
The Scottish princess Ginevra is falsely accused of infidelity through a plot devised by the jealous Polinesso and condemned to death. Only Ariodante, her lover believed dead, who returns in disguise, can prove her innocence in a duel and save her.
Cultural significance
No autograph score of the opera survives; modern editors had to reconstruct the music from about twenty surviving sources for revival performances. The work stayed in the European repertoire for roughly three decades, reaching Vienna as early as October 1801, before falling into obscurity.