Artaxerxes

Movements

Act I

1. Overture
2. Recitative: Still silence reigns around
3. No. 1. Duettino: Fair Aurora, prithee stay
4. Recitative: Alas, thou know’st that for my love to thee
5. No. 2. Air: Adieu, thou lovely youth
6. Recitative: O cruel parting! How can I survive?
7. No. 3. Air: Amid a thousand racking woes
8. Recitative: Be firm, my heart
9. No. 4. Air: Behold, on Lethe’s dismal strand
10. Recitative: Stay, Artaxerxes, stay
11. No. 5. Air: Fair Semira, lovely maid
12. Recitative: I fear some dread disaster…
13. No. 6. Air: When real joy we miss
14. Recitative: Ye Gods, protectors of the Persian Empire
15. No. 7. Air: How hard is the fate
16. Recitative: Whither do I fly?
17. No. 8. Air: Thy father! Away, I renounce the soft claim
18. Recitative: Ye cruel Gods, what crime have I committed
19. No. 9. Air: Acquit thee of this foul offence
20. Recitative: Appearance, I must own, is strong against me
21. No. 10. Air: O too lovely, too unkind
22. Accompanied recitative: Dear and beloved shade
23. No. 11. Air: Fly, soft ideas, fly

Act II

1. Recitative: Guards, speed ye to the tower
2. No. 12. Air: In infancy, our hopes and fears
3. Recitative: So far my great resolve succeeds
4. No. 13. Air: Disdainful you fly me
5. Recitative: Why, my dear friend, so pensive, so inactive?
6. No. 14. Air: To sigh and complain
7. Recitative: How many links to dire misfortune’s chain
8. No. 15. Air: If o’er the cruel tyrant love
9. Recitative: Which fatal evil shall I first oppose?
10. No. 16. Air: If the river’s swelling waves
11. Recitative: Ye solid pillars of the Persian Empire
12. No. 17. Air: By that belov’d embrace
13. Recitative: Ah me, at poor Arbaces’ parting
14. No. 18. Air: Monster, away
15. Recitative: See, lov’d Semira
16. Accompanied recitative: At last my soul has room
17. No. 19. Air: Thou, like the glorious sun

Act III

1. No. 20. Air: Why is death for ever late
2. Recitative: Arbaces! Gracious Heav’n, what’s this I see?
3. No. 21. Air: Water parted from the sea
4. Recitative: That face, secure in conscious innocence
5. No. 22. Air: Though oft a cloud with envious shade
6. Recitative: My son, Arbaces... where art thou retir’d?
7. No. 23. Air: O let the danger of a son
8. Accompanied recitative: Ye adverse Gods!
9. No. 24. Air: O, much lov’d son, if death
10. Recitative: Perhaps the King releas’d Arbaces
11. No. 25. Air: Let not rage, thy bosom firing
12. Recitative: What have I done? Alas, I vainly thought
13. No. 26. Air: ’Tis not true that in our grief
14. Recitative: Nor here my searching eyes can find Mandane
15. No. 27. Duetto: For thee I live, my dearest
16. Recitative: To you, my people, much belov’d
17. No. 28. Air: The soldier, tir’d of war’s alarms
18. Recitative: Behold, my King, Arbaces at thy feet
19. No. 29. Finale: Live to us, to Empire live

Elsewhere

• Wikidata