Ezio (Handel)

Ezio ("Aetius", HWV 29) is an opera seria by George Frideric Handel to a libretto by Metastasio. Metastasio's libretto was partly inspired by Jean Racine's play Britannicus.^[1] The same libretto had already been set by many other composers, first of all Nicola Porpora who managed to preempt the official Rome premiere of Pietro Auletta's setting for 26 December 1728 with his own version (of a slightly edited copy of the libretto) for Venice on 20 November, a month earlier.^[2] The libretto continued to be set and reset for another 50 years, including two versions of Ezio by Gluck. Handel's Ezio is considered one of the purest examples of opera seria with its absence of vocal ensembles.

The story of the opera is a fictionalisation of events in the life of the fifth-century AD Roman general Flavius Aetius (Ezio in Italian), returned from his victory over Attila.