About the work
Motezuma is an opera in three acts by Gian Francesco de Majo to a libretto by Vittorio Amedeo Cigna-Santi, based on Antonio de Solís's history Historia de la conquista de México. It premiered during the 1765 carnival season at the Teatro Regio in Turin.
Plot
The opera tells of the Spanish conquest of Mexico under Hernán Cortés and the subjugation of the Aztec ruler Motezuma, interwoven with a forbidden love story between an indigenous character and a Spanish officer. Unusually for opera seria, the work does not end in reconciliation but with Motezuma's death and the suicide of his daughter Guacozinga.
Cultural significance
Cigna-Santi's libretto on the conquest of Mexico was a popular operatic subject in the eighteenth century, set among others by Vivaldi (1733) and Carl Heinrich Graun (1755). De Majo's version fell into obscurity after its premiere and was revived only in 2003 in Aschaffenburg and in 2004 in Naples.