Overture (Medea)

Pacini's Medea was first given at the Teatro Carolino in Palermo on 28 November 1843, with the composer conducting and Geltrude Bortolotti in the title role. Benedetto Castiglia's libretto draws on Euripides and on Corneille. Pacini revised the opera three times — for Vicenza in 1845, for La Fenice in 1850, and in the version staged at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples on 26 February 1853, which he treated as definitive. It held the stage in Italy, Russia and South America for some twenty years before disappearing behind other settings of the subject; revivals began again in 1993.