About the work
Opera seria in three acts by Niccolò Piccinni after Pietro Metastasio's libretto "Nitteti", premiered on 4 November 1757 at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. Metastasio had written the text in 1756 for the castrato Farinelli and the Madrid court, where Nicola Conforto set the first performance, before more than thirty further composers took up the popular libretto.
Plot
In Egyptian Canopus, Prince Sammete is expected by his father, King Amasis, to marry the supposed princess Nitteti, though he loves the shepherdess Beroe. When the long-lost daughter of the former king Aprio resurfaces, it emerges that Amasis's own daughter Amestris has secretly been raised under a false name, while the young woman known as Nitteti is in fact Beroe. The revealed family ties allow a double wedding: Sammete is united with his beloved Beroe, and Prince Amenofi of Cyrene marries Amestris.
Cultural significance
The libretto ranks among Metastasio's most successful texts, reworking his proven device of hidden kinship that resolves a looming forced marriage. A holograph manuscript of Piccinni's Naples version survives from 1757, attesting to the speed at which he worked for the Teatro San Carlo.