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
Opera in German music, "Singspiele" were no match for contemporary opera serias in artistic sophistication. A milestone of German opera was Anton Schweitzer's "Alceste", with a libretto by Wieland, premiered in 1773 in Weimar. At the end of the 18th century a composer who would change all this would emerge: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. As music moved into the Classical era in the late 18th century, most German-born composers still avoided writing opera in their own language. The great figure of the early Classical period was Christoph Willibald von Gluck but his pioneering reforms were directed at Italian and French opera, not the German