I trow my money away for dat vich the blockhead vish'? I no vant!"


V.

In 1738 Handel was obliged to close the theatre and suspend payment.
He had made and spent during his operatic career the sum of £10,000
sterling, besides dissipating the sum of £50,000 subscribed by his noble
patrons. The rival house lasted but a few months longer, and the Duchess
of Marlborough and her friends, who ruled the opposition clique and
imported Bononcini, paid £12,000 for the pleasure of ruining Handel. His
failure as an operatic composer is due in part to the same causes
which constituted his success in oratorio and cantata. It is a little
significant to notice that, alike by the progress of his own genius and
by the force of conditions, he was forced out of the operatic field at
the very time when he strove to tighten his grip on it.

His free introduction of choral and instrumental music, his creation of
new forms and remodeling of old ones, his entire subordination of the
words in the story to a pure musical purpose, offended the singers and
retarded the action of the drama in the eyes of the audience; yet it was
by virtue of these unpopular characteristics that the public mind was
being moulded to understand and love the form of the oratorio.

From 1734 to 1738 Handel composed and produced a number of operatic
works, the principal ones of which were "Alcina," 1735; "Arminio," 1737;
and "Berenice," 1737. He also during these years wrote the magnificent
music to Dryden's "Alexander's Feast," and the great funeral anthem on
the occasion of Queen Caroline's death in the latter part of the year
1737.