About the work
Romantic opera in four acts by Errico Petrella to a libretto by Giovanni Peruzzini, based on Edward Bulwer-Lytton's novel The Last Days of Pompeii (1834). It was first performed on 26 January 1858 at La Scala in Milan.
Plot
In Pompeii in 79 AD, the title character Jone stands between the Athenian Glauco and the Egyptian priest of Isis, Arbace, who tries to win her by dark means. The plot culminates in the eruption of Vesuvius, which destroys the city and resolves the intrigue along with it.
Cultural significance
With roughly 600 productions worldwide – from Italy and Spain to Melbourne, Calcutta and Manila – Jone's success even outstripped that of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, premiered the same year, which received only about 60 nineteenth-century performances. Yet after its last known Italian performance in Palermo in 1924, Jone almost vanished from the stage until a revival in Caracas in 1981 brought it back.