Xerxes

Opera by George Frideric Handel
Libretto after Niccolò Minato and Silvio Stampiglia In Italian with German surtitles

The Persian Grand Duke Xerxes' campaigns of conquest are not for foreign territories, but for a woman he simply cannot win. Xerxes has left Amastre and has now chosen Romilda as his new object of desire. But she is the lover of his brother Arsamene, whom Romilda's sister Atalanta in turn desires.

We experience a capricious autocrat, constantly torn between fury and sentimental infatuation. This opera is Handel's finest satirical comedy. The score moves deftly between farce and tragedy and provides deep insights into the emotional world of the characters. Handel uses a comparatively modern musical language for his time: he drives the plot forward by largely dispensing with long da capo arias, opting instead for short song forms and often interweaving recitative and aria unusually closely. "Xerxes" thrives on an extremely intense and therefore gripping emotional language and is one of Handel's most popular stage works today.