Handel's Serse

Laurence Cummings directs Academy of Ancient Music and a world-class cast in a concert performance of Serse – Handel’s sensational opera of love and power in ancient Persia.

Xerxes rules over a vast empire, but the human heart is a lot harder to tame, and sometimes the beauty of a plane tree is the only constant in a dangerous world. Created to astonish London audiences in 1738, Handel’s opera Serse is an epic of love, war and civil engineering - and its hit aria 'Ombra mai fu' is one of those melodies that you simply never forget.

This concert performance puts Handel’s music centre stage. Laurence Cummings conducts a team of the world’s leading Handel interpreters, while AAM brings out all the colour, splendour and invention of this gorgeous score. ‘Sumptuous’ was how one critic described AAM’s Barbican performance of Handel’s Orlando in 2024, so expect to be dazzled, astonished – and stirred.