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Opera During his life time, Handel’s fame rested on his achievements as a composer of Italian opera. In this he followed Alessandro Scarlatti, but also absorbed elements of style from Jean Baptiste Lully and his followers. Apart from the few early operas composed in Hamburg on partly German librettos, and  with one exception of the Venetian Agrippina, Handel’s operas were all written for and produced at London opera houses.They employed castrati and prima donnnas and excelled in the beautiful contrapuntal texture of their da capo arias(arias with an ABA form). However, Handel had no confidence in the possibility of an English national opera. When his Neapolitan brand of opera finally failed, especially as it was satirized in “The Beggar’s opera” and in “The  Dragon of Wantley”, Handel’s creative interest shifted to oratorios. Oratorio The oratorios which had a strong popular appeal, encouraging the British audience to identify themselves with the heroic Jewish people of ...

In 1710, Handel was appointed court conductor in Hanover, and also visited London. Around this time, he produced his opera Ronaldo (1711). However, after travelling several times between Hanover and London in the following years, he decided to settle in Great Britain after the spectacular success of his Te Deum, which was first performed to celebrate the peace of Utrecht in 1713. At this point in his career, he established a link with the court of St. James, although still nominally in the service of the Grand Elector of Hanover, who eventually became George I of Great Britain. Following a last visit to Hanover in  1716 when the Brockes Passion was composed, Handel’s connection with his native country, Germany, ended. He became a British citizen by the act  of parliament in 1727, and anglicized his name. The next few years, he dedicated to composing the first and second water music, the anthems for the Duke of Chandos, and the early masques. Handel’s struggle for supremacy a...