About the work
L'olimpiade is a dramma per musica in three acts by Baldassare Galuppi, set to Pietro Metastasio's libretto of the same name. It premiered on 26 December 1747 at the Teatro Regio Ducale in Milan; Galuppi's setting was, alongside Pergolesi's slightly earlier one, among the most performed of the libretto's many settings.
Plot
Licida asks his friend Megacle to compete under his name at the Olympic Games to win the hand of the king's daughter Aristea. Megacle, however, is himself in love with Aristea, and the request pits friendship against love. After many complications it emerges that Licida is the long-lost son of King Clistene, which resolves the plot happily with two weddings.
Cultural significance
Metastasio's 1733 libretto was set to music more than seventy times up to the early nineteenth century, including by Vivaldi and Hasse, and counts among his most popular works. It addresses questions of legitimate rule and the tension between duty and inclination that were central to Enlightenment aesthetics.