About the work
Nitteti is an opera seria by Johann Adolph Hasse on Pietro Metastasio's libretto, which Nicola Conforto had already set two years earlier for its 1756 Madrid premiere before Hasse took up the same text. Hasse's version premiered on 4 January 1758 at the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice; a second, revised setting by Hasse followed in 1759 in Warsaw.
Plot
The action takes place at the Egyptian court: Pharaoh Amasis, honouring a deathbed promise, wants his son Sammete to marry Princess Nitteti, but Sammete loves the supposed shepherdess Beroe. Only when Beroe turns out to be Amasis's own daughter Amestri can a double wedding take place, with Sammete marrying Beroe and Amenofi marrying the true Princess Nitteti.
Cultural significance
Metastasio based the story on Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus; that the text was set within two years first by Conforto in Madrid and then by Hasse in Venice shows how quickly new Metastasio librettos spread through the courtly opera business of the 1750s.