La Salustia is a 1732 opera (dramma per musica) in three acts by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi to a revised text, possibly by Sebastiano Morelli, after Apostolo Zeno's famous 1716 libretto Alessandro Severo, which was also later adapted by Handel. The production was marred when the leading man Nicolo Grimaldi "Nicolini" fell fatally ill before the performance and an inexperienced substitute Gioacchino Conti "Gizziello" had to be called in at the last minute. La Salustia was Pergolesi's first opera seria. The story is based on the life of the Roman emperor Alexander Severus and his wife Sallustia Orbiana.
Background
In 1731 Pergolesi's long years of study at the Conservatorio dei Poveri di Gesù Cristo in Naples were reaching their end. He had already begun to make a name for himself and was able to pay off his expenses by working as a performer in religious institutions and noble salons, first as a singer then as a violinist. In 1729–30 he had been "capoparanza" (first violin) in a group of instrumentalists and, according to a later witness, it was the Oratorian Fathers who made most regular use of his artistic services as well as those of other "mastricelli" (little maestros) from the Conservatorio. The first important commission Pergolesi received on leaving the school was linked to this religious order and on 19 March 1731 his oratorio ["The Phoenix on the Pyre, or The Death of Saint Joseph"] was performed in the atrium of the church today known as the Chiesa dei Girolamini, the home of the Congregazione di San Giuseppe. This two-part oratorio, with a text by Antonino Maria Paolucci, was the first important work by the composer from Jesi. "The following summer Pergolesi was asked to set to music, as the final exercise of his studies, a dramma sacro in three acts by Ignazio Mancini, Li prodigi della divina grazia nella conversione e morte di san Guglielmo duca d’Aquitania ["The Miracles of Divine Grace in the Conversion and Death of Saint William, Duke of Aquitaine"]. The performance took place in the cloisters of the monastery of Sant'Agnello Maggiore, the home of the Canons Regular of the Most Holy Savior."
Whether as a result of the renown Pergolesi had earned from such precocious activity, or the support of the noble families at the court of the Habsburg Viceroyalty of Naples with whom he had been in contact and who would later employ him as maestro di cappella, in late 1731 Pergolesi obtained a commission to write an opera seria, with comic intermezzi, from the leading Neapolitan theatre of the time, Teatro San Bartolomeo. Virtually nothing is known of the circumstances of the composition. It was decided to use a reworking of a libretto by Apostolo Zeno, Alessandro Severo, written about 15 years earlier, now renamed after another leading character as La Salustia. The author of the revision is unknown, even if some sources are inclined to give the credit to a certain Sebastiano Morelli, an otherwise obscure figure, who wrote the dedication to the wife of the Viceroy of Naples contained in the printed libretto. However, it makes no mention of the obvious connection with Zeno's text.
The company employed by the Teatro San Bartolomeo enjoyed a high reputation. Following the conventions of the operatic theatre of the time the company was usually supposed to consist of a couple of female singers to take the roles of prima and seconda donna (first and second ladies); a couple of musici ("musicians", a euphemistic term for "castrati"), who might be replaced by women en travesti, for the roles of first and second amorosi ("lovers"); a baritenor (or, if there was no alternative, a bass) for the roles of father, general or rival – if the characters were good – or, more often, the villain; and probably other singers used in the tertiary roles, of little importance and often even lacking independent arias. These roles could also be filled by singers employed in the comic intermezzi, if there were any, generally a bass and a soprano (or, in an earlier period, a contralto).