Today, Johann Friedrich Agricola (1720–1774) is primarily known as a world-renowned music writer. As a musician, he was a student of Johann Sebastian Bach, chamber musician, and court composer at the court of Frederick the Great and was in close contact with figures such as Carl Heinrich Graun, Johann Joachim Quantz, and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.

With the first staging in 250 years and the first recording of Agricola's second festive opera "Achille in Sciro" (1765), the Theater Altenburg-Gera followes the composer, born in Thuringia, up to ancient Greece, which serves as the setting for the libretto by opera revolutionary Pietro Metastasio: Due to an ominous oracle, the young Achilles, who is later to be crucial in the Greeks' fight for Troy, is hidden on the island of Sciro - in women's clothing. Only the king's daughter Deidamia knows his true identity. A game of secrecy and love ensues. But when Odysseus arrives on Skyros, Achilles is faced with the decision between his lust for war and his love for Deidamia.