Thomas Arne (1710-78) is remembered today - if at all - as the composer of Rule, Britannia! He reached adulthood just as Handel's troubles as London's leading Italian opera impresario started and the great German-born composer was tentatively turning to the English oratorio. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that Arne wrote no operas during the lifetime of London's immigrant musical giant; but in 1762, three years after Handel's death, he produced Artaxerxes, an English-language opera seria - something Handel never attempted - with a text based on a libretto by Pietro Metastasio, the dominant opera seria poet from the time of Handel to that of Mozart.
Artaxerxes was to be Arne's only opera of this kind, but, unlike Handel's Italian operas, it achieved lasting success. During one of his London visits in the 1790s, Haydn was astonished to hear that an English opera such as this existed. Despite the loss of performing materials in the 1808 fire that destroyed the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, where Artaxerxes was first performed - the recits and finale were lost for ever, although the published text survived intact - it remained a hit well into the 19th century thanks to Henry Bishop, the composer of Home, Sweet Home, who rewrote the missing passages in his own style.
In the past 30 years, there have been two notable attempts to establish a viable version of Artaxerxes: an in-house studio performance commissioned by Elaine Padmore, now the ROH's opera director, when she was in charge of opera broadcasting at Radio 3; and a commercial recording of Peter Holman's reconstruction on Hyperion. Now Padmore has joined forces with Ian Page's Classical Opera Company to stage Page's completion - with Duncan Druce, who wrote the new finale - in the Royal Opera's Linbury Studio. As designed by Johan Engels and directed by Martin Duncan, this Arta-xerxes rises like a phoenix from the flames: it is a sumptuous visual feast with musical rewards aplenty. One can hear why Haydn was so pleasantly surprised.
The plot is a typically convoluted Metastasian clash of titans: the Persian King Xerxes has been murdered by his general Artabanes, who hopes to usurp the throne for his exiled son, Arbaces, first by killing Xerxes's heir, Darius, then by plotting to poison Darius's younger brother, Artaxerxes, at the moment of his coronation. Sexual passion complicates the politics: Xerxes's daughter, Mandane - a classic Metastasio virago, always on the verge of a nervous breakdown - loves Arbaces, but duty to her father's memory compels her to rebuff him. Of course, all is resolved at the coronation, when the poisoned cup is inadvertently passed to Arbaces and the villainous Artabanes fesses up: Artaxerxes commutes the death sentence to permanent exile and they all live happily ever after, to Druce's splendiferously trumpety Handelian finale.
This staging is without doubt the most sumptuous show the Royal Opera has mounted at the Linbury. A midnight-blue box incorporating a white "swimming-pool" of an orchestra pit, with a spangly starscape of lights above the stage and auditorium, is the simple permanent setting, but Engels has designed fabulous baroque costumes with hints of samurai hardware for the men.
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Duncan and Engels are not the first to make the link between the grandiose characters and hieratic gestures of opera seria and those of Japanese theatre. The puppet-like stiffness and formality of the characters is emphasised by bunraku-style helpers in beekeeping wear, who lead the principal singers on and off stage, and help them swoon without falling over in their cumbersome panniers.
The RO has assembled a very decent cast, from which Elizabeth Watts's dazzling Mandane - brilliant in her famous solos, Fly, soft ideas, fly and The soldier tir'd of war's alarms - stands out. Hers is the most vividly drawn character, and she grasps her histrionic opportunities greedily, steaming with indignant rage. Caitlin Hulcup's Arbaces has the lion's share of the most affecting music, which she sings touchingly. As the villainous Artabanes, Andrew Staples sounds nasal, but he is a fine singer with immaculate diction. As Artaxerxes's beloved Semira, Rebecca Bottone's light soubrette contrasts well with Watts's more voluptuous timbre. Christopher Ainslie's soft-grained countertenor can't make Artaxerxes the central figure, but that's the way the opera was written: the title role is of secondary importance.
The Classical Opera Company's period-instrument band relish the opportunities given to them by Arne's unusually rich scoring, but gratitude for Page's reconstruction of this fascinating opera is mitigated by his worthy, pedestrian conducting. Even so, this is not to be missed.
Scottish Opera has a hit on its hands with its new production - a collaboration with NBR New Zealand Opera - of Rossini's madcap farce, The Italian Girl in Algiers, even though it is sung in far from idiomatic Italian, with an almost entirely Anglophone cast. The director, Colin McColl, and his design team - Tony Rabbit, sets and lighting; Nic Smillie, costumes - have set the action in a studio where a Brazilian soap, Algiers, is being filmed, with live action superimposed, hilariously, onto computer-generated scenery. The audiences watch actors and backstage staff set up the shoot against a Kermit-green background while the finished product is visible on a huge screen. It's as if Katie Mitchell is directing and one of her acolytes has slipped laughing-gas capsules into her cuppa.
During Act I, the frenetic larking about might seem too busy and silly - you could say the same of Rossini's early (1813) Venetian comedy - but it comes into focus in Act II, thanks to the stellar performance of the buxom-and-proud mezzo Karen Cargill, a Scottish Marilyn Horne, pearly of tone and insouciant as she scampers up and down Rossini's dizzying scales. She gives a larger-than-life performance, in every sense, as an all-tits-and-teeth soap diva. She's deliciously, self-consciously vulgar, except when singing the notes: a genuine, home-grown prima donna. The rest of the cast aren't on her level - although Tiziano Bracci brings authentic buffo Italianita, if not ideal virtuosity, to the "Algerian" Bey, Mustafa - but the ensembles and orchestral playing fizz, thanks to Wyn Davies's sprightly conducting, perfectly in tune with McColl's whiz-bang staging.
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Artaxerxes, Linbury, ROH, WC2, Tue, Thu, Sat. The Italian Girl in Algiers, His Majesty's Theatre, Aberdeen, Sat; and Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Nov 21, 25 and 27