[5] Perhaps as a result of these suspicions, or simply because of the box office failure of his opera Adriano in Siria (produced the same year at the Teatro San Bartolomeo and even appreciated, it was said, by the new king Charles VII), Pergolesi was not invited to participate in the 1735 theatrical season in Naples.

[8] The papal prohibition on women participating on stage in Rome determined the proliferation of castrati, who also performed the female roles; five members of the cast belonged to this category, the remaining two parts being given to tenors.

For the leading man the theatre turned to an outstanding singer from the Sistine Chapel, Domenico Ricci, who had permission to take part in theatrical performances in Rome.

), a tenor, and Carlo Brunetti, a contralto (the only singer with this vocal register among the group of high voices), who were nevertheless gratified by the extra attention Pergolesi paid their roles in his score.

Productions based on Pergolesi's setting were performed in various cities: in Perugia and Cortona in 1738, in Siena in 1741, perhaps in Florence in 1737, certainly in London in 1742,[18] where the pasticcio presented at the King's Theatre under the title of Meraspe was largely based on Pergolesi's score (with the addition of four or five arias by Giuseppe Scarlatti, Leonardo Leo and Giovanni Battista Lampugnani), and left a lasting impression in the years to come.

The first staged performances in the 21st century took place in 2003 in several historical theatres of Emilia-Romagna (Modena, Parma, Piacenza and Reggio Emilia), conducted by Ottavio Dantone in a production by Italo Nunziata.

[24] Unitel Classics made a video recording of the "magnificent" version presented in 2011 at the Festival Pergolesi Spontini in Jesi, conducted by Alessandro De Marchi with a production again by Italo Nunziata.

[28] In the sixth scene, as the action draws to a close, a moving additional aria was also inserted for Licida, "Nella fatal mia sorte".

[30] Pergolesi also used music from Adriano to set the original Metastasian verses in Aminta’s second aria (Act 3), "Son qual per mare ignoto".

In it: the tenderly 'speaking' melody that bears the true current of feeling backwards and forwards between Aristea and Megacle, is periodically racked by spasms of angular chromaticism that depict them on the verge of losing self-control, or broken down into dialogue of opera-buffa-like verisimilitude.

The literary masterpiece of a Metastasio at the peak of his art (he was barely 35 when he wrote it) found its first musical flowering at the hands of the young composer from Jesi.