• George Frideric Handel. Opera in three acts. 1738.
• Libretto adapted from Silvio Stampiglia's Il Xerse.
• First performance at the King's Theatre, London, on 15^th April 1738.

Xerxes sings in praise of a tree's shade, while the voice of Romilda is heard. She is loved by Arsamene, but Xerxes resolves to marry her, to the relief of Atalanta, who also loves Arsamene, while Amastre, disguised as a man and deserted by Xerxes, looks for revenge. Atalanta's pretence that Arsamene really loves her and the insistence of Xerxes on marrying Romilda cause a series of complications, enlivened by the comic servant Elviro. Eventually matters are put right, with Xerxes united again with Amastre and Arsamene with Romilda.

Handel's opera has a mixture of the serious and the comic. It opens with one of the most celebrated of arias, as Xerxes praises the shade of a plane-tree, Ombra mai fù (Shade there never was), known, in arrangement after arrangement, as Handel's Largo. The work was a marked failure when it was first staged in London and was given only five performances. The resurrection of the so-called Largo was left to the 19^th century.