Serse Serse Serse (; English title: "Xerxes"; HWV 40) is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel. It was first performed in London on 15 April 1738. The Italian libretto was adapted by an unknown hand from that by Silvio Stampiglia for an earlier opera of the same name by Giovanni Bononcini in 1694. Stampiglia's libretto was itself based on one by Nicolò Minato that was set by Francesco Cavalli in 1654. The opera is set in Persia (modern-day Iran) about 470 BC and is very loosely based upon Xerxes I of Persia. Serse, originally sung by a
Royal Patriarchal Music Seminary of Lisbon had passed he was already recruiting Italian opera singers and others to establish a professional opera company within the court's structure. Among several others, probably the most important of these was the Neapolitan-trained organist and composer, Davide Perez who in 1752 was appointed as "mestre de capela" at the Royal Chapel and music master to the royal princesses. Within of that same year, he opened within the palace building a new theatre called the "Teatro do Forte" which he had created by converting the room in which foreign ambassadors had once been presented. A number of operas by Perez, Johann