Artaserse

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Artaserse is the name of a number of Italian operas, all based on a text by Metastasio. Artaserse is the Italian form of the name of a Persian king, Artaxerxes.

The libretto was first set by Vinci in 1730 for Rome. It was subsequently set by Hasse in 1730 for Venice and in 1760 for Naples, by Gluck in 1741 for Milan, by Graun in 1743 for Stuttgart, by Galuppi in 1749 for Vienna, by Johann Christian Bach in 1760 for London, and many other times. The text was often altered.

Thomas Arne's 1762 Artaxerxes is set to an English libretto that is based on Metastasio's.

The opera was famously performed in 1734 as a pastiche, featuring songs by various composers such as Attilio Ariosti, Niccolo Porpora and Riccardo Broschi. It was in this that Broschi's brother, Farinelli, sang one of his best known arias, Son qual nave ch'agitata.