Wikipedia
("Admetus, King of Thessaly", HWV 22) is a three-act opera written for the Royal Academy of Music with music composed by George Frideric Handel to an Italian-language libretto prepared by Nicola Haym. The story is partly based on Euripides' Alcestis. The opera's first performance was at the Haymarket Theatre in London on 31 January 1727. The original cast included Faustina Bordoni as Alcestis and Francesca Cuzzoni as Antigona, as Admeto was the second of the five operas that Handel composed to feature specifically these two of the day.
The opera was very successful at its first performances. However the presence of two prima donnas in the London operas had created factions of very partisan supporters of either one or the other ladies, and some performances were disrupted by hisses and loud cat calls by supporters of one of the star sopranos whenever the other one was singing, creating public scandal.