The performances included a number of substitution arias, and in the 1656 libretto, next to Erillo's aria "Chiedete e sperate", was noted the instruction "a different aria to be sung every night".[3]
Artemisia was performed by Helios Early Opera in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in January 2013, the North American premiere of the work.[4]
The story is based on the convention which Cavalli had established in several of his 10 earlier operas with the librettist Faustini. It features two pairs of crossed lovers reunited by a benign monarch, and is a story of love, betrayal, virtue and honour set in the Venetian Republic. It touches on politics, social issues and the moral values of three couples.[5]
^Fabris 2007, p. ?: "We have not only copies of the libretto (Venice, 1656), Sartori 3126, but also Cavalli's score (I-Vnm), which has been recently studied by Hendrik Schulze, referring to the 1657 Production of Francesco Cavalli's Artemisia.
Cavalli, Francesco; Minato, Nicolò, librettist (2013). Artemisia, edited by Hendrik Schulze and Sara Elisa Stangalino. Kassel: Bärenreiter. ISMN 9790006556663
Fabris, Dinko (2007). Music in Seventeenth-Century Naples: Francesco Provenzale (1624-1704). Ashgate Publishing. ISBN0754637212ISBN9780754637219.
Rosand, Ellen (2007). Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice: The Creation of a Genre. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. ISBN9780520254268.