Rule Britannia this is not. Thomas Arne is best known as the composer of a flagwaving sing-along, but his opera Artaxerxes, given its first staging in more than a century by the Classical Opera Company, reveals a composer with rather more cosmopolitan ambitions.
The setting is ancient Persia, where the general Artabanes is trying to gain power by bumping off everyone with a claim to the throne. His son Arbaces, who did not inherit the evil gene, is framed for his father's murder of the king – and not until the end does Artabanes relent enough to own up himself.
Writing in 1762, Arne was trying to transplant the fashion for serious, quasi-historical Italian opera into the English language. But, hit though it was, Artaxerxes seems an odd mixture of the modish and the anachronistic. The story screams Handel, but the arias, less stylistically rigid, are from the world of Haydn and Mozart. Then there's the text, translated from Metastasio by Arne himself. In one number, the combination of contrived sentences, a lilting, mocking rhythm and the perfect BBC English of American tenor Steven Ebel brings to mind Gilbert and Sullivan.
However, Martin Duncan's simple, stylised production takes the opera very seriously, with beautiful and often absorbing results. Against a midnight-blue background, Johan Engels's fabulous costumes are a Smarties tube of colours: English crinolines worn over Persian harem pants, with long flickable wigs and elegantly turned heels. And that's just the men. There's also a hint of Japanese theatre, with four masked scene-shifters on hand to manipulate the singers like giant bunraku puppets. The players, pacily conducted by Ian Page, are deservedly highlighted in the well-lit orchestra pit.
Arne's storytelling isn't the clearest. Artabanes's motivation seems to change every time he comes on stage, but Andrew Staples's vigorous tenor brings him to villainous life. A fierier voice than Christopher Ainslie's countertenor might make the reluctant new king of the title role seem stronger. However, Rebecca Bottone's diamond-edged soprano is a great foil for Elizabeth Watts, by turns vulnerable and imperious in the star role of Mandane, Artaxerxes's sister and Arbaces's lover.
Mezzo Caitlin Hulcup is a winsome Arbaces, whose love song over sustained violas and plucked basses could stand up to the best of Mozart. The rest of the score isn't on that level, but it's worthy of the dusting off, and this production makes a handsome presentation box.
