About the work
Dramma per musica by Francesco Sacrati, to a libretto by Giulio Strozzi. The opera inaugurated the Teatro Novissimo in Venice, a theatre built specifically for opera, during the 1641 carnival season, with elaborate stage machinery by Giacomo Torelli.
Plot
To save her son Achilles from a prophesied death at Troy, the goddess Thetis has hidden him, disguised as a woman, at the court of King Lycomedes, where he secretly loves the king's daughter Deidamia and fathers a son, Pirro, with her. Feeling abandoned by Achilles, Deidamia feigns madness to secure marriage and recognition of their child before he departs for Troy.
Cultural significance
The title role was sung by the young Anna Renzi, marking her sensational Venetian debut. The score was long thought lost until it was rediscovered by musicologist Lorenzo Bianconi in 1984; as early as 1645 the work was among the first operas ever performed in Paris.