Siroe /

Siroe, re di Persia (Siroes, King of Persia), HWV 24, is an opera in three acts by George Frideric Handel. It was his 12th opera for the Royal Academy of Music and was written for the sopranos Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni. The opera uses an Italian-language libretto by Nicola Francesco Haym, after Metastasio's Siroe. Like many of Metastasio's libretti, it was also set by Handel's contemporaries, e.g. by Leonardo Vinci, Antonio Vivaldi and Johann Adolph Hasse (see Hasse's Siroe). Pasquale Errichelli's setting of the libretto (see Errichelli's Siroe) premiered in the year of Handel's death. The opera was first given under the direction of the composer at the King's Theatre in London on 17 February 1728 and it was also seen in Braunschweig, Germany. It was rediscovered and performed in Gera, Germany, in December 1925.