It was staged at St. Petersburg in a wing of Zimniy Dvorets on March 7, [OS February 27], 1755 with effective sets by Giuseppe Valeriani.

The other actors were "pevchie" (the singers) of Count Andrey Kirillovich Razumovsky: Stefan Evstafiev (Aurora), Stefan Rzhevsky (Erechtheus, the King of Athens), Nikolay Ktitarev (Minos, the King of Crete), Ivan Tatishchev (Tester, the nobleman of Minos and magician).

This opera had a great success, and the composer received a luxurious sable coat valued at 500 rubles as a gift from Empress Elizaveta Petrovna.

Cephalus, stolen directly from the wedding ceremony in the temple, rejects the love of the powerful goddess Aurora.

But meanwhile Prokris, suffering from jealousy, is moving towards her inevitably death: Cephalus, aimed supposedly at the beast, mortally wounds his own wife.