About the work
Dramma per musica in three acts by Antonio Vivaldi to a libretto by Girolamo Alvise Giusti, first performed on 14 November 1733 at the Teatro Sant'Angelo in Venice. It is among the earliest operas to draw on a subject from the history of the Americas.
Plot
The libretto shows the last hours of the Aztec ruler Motezuma in the captivity of the Spanish conqueror Hernán Cortés. Unlike the historical record, the opera does not end with his death but reconciles the conflict: the lovers Teutile and Ramiro also come together despite the enmity between their peoples.
Cultural significance
According to Vivaldi scholar Michael Talbot, Giusti's libretto shows an unusually sympathetic view of the Mexican ruler and his wife for its time. The score, seized by the Red Army after the Second World War and taken to the Soviet Union, was long thought lost and was only identified around the turn of the millennium; rights to the rediscovered music then became the subject of a legal dispute.