After its first performance at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in 1762, Arne’s Artaxerxes was an instant hit. It was the first opera in the style of an Italian opera seria that was written in English, and English audiences loved it. It received revivals almost every year until the 1830s, both in Covent Garden, and at Drury Lane Theatre, and St James’s. As early as 1767 the work received its first performance in the USA in New York.
The opera retained the historical storylines of many of the Italian operas, and could almost be considered a sequel to Handel’s Xerxes, being set in the same
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Artaxerxes guide sections
