About the work
Dramma per musica in three acts by Antonio Vivaldi to Pietro Metastasio's libretto of the same name, which Antonio Caldara had already set to music a year earlier. The version slightly adapted by Bartolomeo Vitturi for the Venetian production premiered on 17 February 1734 at the Teatro Sant'Angelo in Venice.
Plot
At the ancient Olympic games, the Athenian Megacle competes under a false name on behalf of his friend Licida in order to win Licida's beloved Aristea – who happens to be the woman Megacle himself loves. After complications involving jealousy, an attempted regicide and Licida's desperate act, it emerges that Licida is in fact Aristea's long-lost brother, allowing two couples to be united at the end.
Cultural significance
Metastasio's libretto was one of the most popular of the 18th century and was set by more than 50 composers; Vivaldi's version followed almost immediately after Caldara's setting premiered in the same Carnival season. Performed only once in Vivaldi's lifetime, the opera then fell into obscurity and was rediscovered only in 1939 among archival holdings in Turin.