About the work
Il re pastore is an opera seria by Niccolò Jommelli after the libretto by Pietro Metastasio. It premiered on 4 November 1764 at the court theatre in Ludwigsburg; in 1770 João Cordeiro da Silva produced a revised version at the Teatro de Salvaterra in Lisbon. The libretto had first been set by Giuseppe Bonno in 1751 at the garden theatre of Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna and, with fewer than thirty settings, remained comparatively rare – its best-known setting later became Mozart's.
Plot
Alexander the Great has conquered the kingdom of Sidon and wants to reinstate its rightful heir Abdolonimo, who grew up as a shepherd unaware of his origins and lives under the name Aminta. Aminta loves the noblewoman Elisa, but Alexander recognises him as the sought-after king and has him crowned. When Alexander plans to marry the new king to the fugitive princess Tamiri, Aminta's love for Elisa is put at risk, until all the entanglements resolve in favour of the original couples.
Cultural significance
Il re pastore is one of Metastasio's less frequently set librettos; Jommelli's version was written for the Württemberg court in Ludwigsburg and was revised in 1770 for the Portuguese stage in Lisbon – evidence of the ties between the two courts where Jommelli and his reviser Cordeiro da Silva worked.