Köhler stages the emotional rollercoaster of the first two acts around a huge dining table…The idea of the broken feast perfectly captures the disruptive nature of Xerxes’s tyranny…Arquez is magnificent as Xerxes, and Elizabeth Sutphen makes a touching Romilda, feisty as well as tender. For once the put-upon Arsamene has an inner life of his own with the countertenor Lawrence Zazzo making a feast of his Act II aria ‘Quella che tutte fè’. In the pit Constantinos Carydis never lets pace of musical imagination flag.

While the director plays up the elements of chaos…and incipient cruelty, his modern-dress staging, complete with video-installations, is theatrically compelling and psychologically convincing. In a uniformly fine, camera-friendly cast, all the singers throw themselves with gusto into their roles and interact vividly…Arquez rightly dominates, vocally and dramatically…Carydis’s direction, always responsive to the singers, meshes well with the production.

Tilmann Köhler’s modern dress production is another instance of video installation, this time blending the cast, which meets around a long table, with film of the same. It is a bravura production with a cast to match. Gaëlle Arquez is a smoothly focused Xerxes, Louise Alder and Elizabeth Sutphen divide the abundant soprano honours, Lawrence Zazzo’s countertenor contrasts well with Tanja Ariane Baumgartner’s explosive mezzo, and Brandon Cedel anchors things with a firm bass. Constantinos Carydis conducts with pliancy and energy.

Video is outstanding and the multi-channel audio works well. A fine issue, the first DVD of this major Handel opera.