About the work
Medea in Corinto is an opera in two acts by Johann Simon Mayr to a libretto by Felice Romani, who drew on Euripides' tragedy and Domenico Morosini's play of the same name. It premiered on 28 November 1813 at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, with Isabella Colbran as Medea and Andrea Nozzari as Giasone, conducted by Giuseppe Festa.
Plot
Abandoned by Giasone, Medea plots revenge in Corinth, intending to kill not only his new bride but also their own children. Unlike in Pierre Corneille's version, Giasone is prevented from taking his own life at the end.
Cultural significance
Compared with François-Benoît Hoffman's libretto for Cherubini's Médée, Romani newly introduced the character of Aigeus and treated the material with notable independence. Naples's government sent Mayr a formal letter of thanks for the work's success; the opera stayed on European stages for about a generation before falling largely into obscurity and being rediscovered some 150 years later.