page_title: Il Ruggiero
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Il Ruggiero / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Italian poet Pietro Metastasio (1698-1782)
context_page_description: Il Ruggiero is an opera in three acts composed by Johann Adolph Hasse to a libretto by Pietro Metastasio. It was first staged on 16 October 1771 for the wedding of Archduke Ferdinand Karl with Maria Beatrice d'Este in the Teatro Regio Ducale, Milan. It was both Metastasio's last libretto and Hasse's last opera, as well as the thirty-second Metastasio libretto Hasse had set to music.
context_section_description: Metastasio had previously written a first version of the libretto at the request of Empress Maria Theresa for the marriage of Marie Antoinette with the future Louis XVI on May 16, 1770. It was this wedding which inspired the theme of the opera, with its setting in Paris and its focus on courtly love. Metastasio did not feel able to discharge this commission well, and only reluctantly agreed to do so out of a sense of duty to the empress. After a while he stopped working on the text and the court had to abandon the planned performance. Nevertheless, Maria Theresa insisted that he complete the libretto. The following year, at the wedding of her son Ferdinand to Maria Beatrice d'Este, she ordered Metastasio to revise it for performance on October 16, 1771 in Milan.
  Her favorite composer Hasse, who had been associated with the imperial court for over thirty years, was commissioned to compose the music. Hasse was 71 years old and plagued by gout, so was hardly able to write. He had also abandoned writing theatre music three years before, to devote the rest of his life to church music. He was aware that musical tastes had changed and that his style was no longer what people wanted to hear. Nevertheless, he accepted the commission.
caption: Metastasio by Batoni
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