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
Baroque music of the British Isles (1702–14), had a reputation for being uninterested in culture, but had a considerable musical education and some talent. As a princess she was a patron of Purcell, Turner and Blow and from the early years of her reign she sponsored compositions for Royal processions and occasions including her coronation and the Acts of Union in 1707, which created the Kingdom of Great Britain. Her successor George Elector of Hanover, king of Great Britain and Ireland from 1714 to 1727 as George I, was perhaps the most musically minded monarch of the era, bringing German and Italian music and musicians with