Eighteenth-century Italian operas in serious style are almost always set in a distant or legendary past and are built around historical, pseudo-historical, or mythological characters. The main character of Metastasio's Artaserse is based on the life of king Artaxerxes I of Persia, a ruler of the fifth century B.C., son of Xerxes I. As women were banned from singing on stage in Rome (part of the Papal States) at that time, all the female roles were played by castrati. As was typical of Baroque Italian operas of the 18th century, the heroic roles of Arbace and Artaserse were played by castrati. The lone tenor plays the main villain Artabano, as typical of Baroque Italian operas, where the broken male voice is usually assigned to villains and servants.
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