By 1737, the ferocious rivalry between Handel and Porpora - as well as changing tastes-destroyed both their companies. Magnificent as it was, Alcina could not ultimately save the overheated, money-hemorrhaging field of Italian opera in England. It was one of the major successes of Handel’s career, earning 18 performances in its first season and even winning the support of his erstwhile opponent, the former Prince of Wales, now George II. On April 16, 1735, Handel introduced one of his greatest masterpieces, the exquisite fantasy opera Alcina, replete with an extraordinary title character, spectacular scenic effects, and a series of the most gorgeous and dramatically expressive arias he had ever created. Handel’s unlikely savior was the impresario John Rich, who, ironically, had been the producer of The Beggar’s Opera flush with profits from that show, he built a handsome new opera house at Covent Garden on the site of the present Royal Opera House and invited Handel to go into partnership with him there. Not content with having Farinelli on his roster, Porpora lured away many of Handel’s vocal stars, including the castrato contralto Senesino, with fatter contracts. By the 1730s, now supported by the Princess Royal, he was back in business, but this time facing a new rival: the Opera of the Nobility led by Nicola Porpora, an able composer and, moreover, Italy’s most famous vocal pedagogue whose pupils included the legendary castrato Farinelli. Suddenly, the imported form of Italian opera seria seemed an artificial and elitist art form to the British public, and before 1728, both Handel’s and Bononcini’s companies sank in a sea of debt.īut the enterprising Handel was not finished yet, and neither was Italian opera in London. A bigger one came the next year: the triumphant London production of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, an English-language comic adventure with music inspired by popular ballads. In 1727, Handel suffered a blow with the death of King George I, who had backed Handel with his patronage and financial largesse. From 1720 on, when he directed his first operatic season at the Royal Academy of Music, Handel was the reigning monarch of this world, but there were many pretenders to the throne. For the better part of a decade, Handel had to compete with Italian composer Giovanna Bononcini, not only as to which was the better composer, but also which could engage the most celebrated Italian singers and showcase them in the most lavish productions. The war for supremacy in the world of Italian-opera production in early-18 th -century London was as vicious as anything that happened on the battlefields or in the courts of Europe in that era.
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