the opera received its first performance at the king's theatre, london on 15 january 1732. it received a total of only 5 performances before falling from the repertoire, in what turned out to be handel's greatest operatic failure. it was revived in göttingen in 1926 and became extremely popular in the former east germany, receiving more than 350 performances in at least 23 different revivals to 1983. in london, "ezio" did not receive another performance after the five in handel's lifetime until 1977, by the handel opera society at sadler's wells theatre. winton dean has stated that the failure of the opera related to the artistic incompatibility between the "classical" nature of the libretto and the more "romantic" nature of the music. as with all baroque opera seria, "ezio" went unperformed for many years, but with the revival of interest in baroque music and historically informed musical performance since the 1960s,"ezio", like all handel operas, receives performances at festivals and opera houses today. among other performances, "ezio" was staged by the london handel festival in 2005, and in may 2009 it was performed at the schlosstheater schwetzingen as part of the schwetzingen festival. the performance, staged by günter krämer, with yosemeh adjei singing ezio, was also broadcast on the german television network 3sat on 19 september 2009.