The librettist was so pleased with her performance that he wrote a poem to her. The opera was premiered by the Seyler Company on at the Hoftheater Weimar, with Franziska Romana Koch in the title role, whose voice the composer had in mind when he wrote the opera.
The Hoftheater Weimar on an 1899 postcard The opera is regarded as a milestone of German opera. The librettist reduced the number of characters to four, and employed no choir. Wieland and Schweitzer wanted to create in Alceste a work that could compete internationally. Early pieces for such a theatre were the Singspiele Die Jagd by Johann Adam Hiller and Die Dorfgala by Schweitzer. Duchess Anna Amalie of Weimar wanted to establish a Nationalbühne, a stage for plays and operas in German.
Wieland's goal was an "interessante Art von Schauspielen" (a more interesting form of plays) with a focus on "Rührung" (emotional affect). Wieland wrote several comments to the libretto of Alceste, including in his essay Versuch über das Deutsche Singspiel, explaining his intentions to Charles Burney who was surprised on his musical trips through France, Italy and Germany that he found now German lyrical theatre. The librettist and the composer had collaborated already for the ballets Idris und Zenide and Aurora, with Wieland compared to Metastasio. The opera was an effort to found a German opera style, while earlier operas in German had relied on Italian and French traditions, for example the lost Dafne by Heinrich Schütz, and the first extant opera in German, Das geistliche Waldgedicht oder Freudenspiel, genannt Seelewig by Sigmund Theophil Staden on a libretto by Georg Philipp Harsdörffer, which is closely related to works of the Renaissance. Anton Schweitzer worked as a musical director for the company since 1769. He was a strong proponent of German opera. Christoph Martin Wieland, the poet and librettistĪlceste was commissioned by Abel Seyler for the Seylersche Schauspiel-Gesellschaft.
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