For several years after the subscription of the nobility had been
exhausted, our composer, having invested £10,000 of his own in the
Haymarket, produced operas with remarkable affluence, some of them
_pasticcio_ works, composed of all sorts of airs, in which the
singers could give their _bravura songs_. These were "Lotario,"
1729; "Partenope," 1730; "Poro," 1731; "Ezio," 1732; "Sosarme," 1732;
"Orlando," 1733; "Ariadne," 1734; and also several minor works. Handel's
operatic career was not so much the outcome of his choice as dictated
to him by the necessity of time and circumstance. As time went on, his
operas lost public interest. The audiences dwindled, and the overflowing
houses of his earlier experience were replaced by empty benches. This,
however, made little difference with Handel's royal patrons. The king
and the Prince of Wales, with their respective households, made it
an express point to show their deep interest in Handel's success.
In illustration of this, an amusing anecdote is told of the Earl of
Chesterfield. During the performance of "Rinaldo" this nobleman, then
an equerry of the king, was met quietly retiring from the theatre in the
middle of the first act. Surprise being expressed by a gentleman who
met the earl, the latter said: "I don't wish to disturb his Majesty's
privacy."

Handel paid his singers in those days what were regarded as enormous
prices. Senisino and Carestini had each twelve hundred pounds, and
Cuzzoni two thousand, for the season. Toward the end of what may be
called the Handel season nearly all the singers and nobles forsook him,
and supported Farinelli, the greatest singer living, at the rival house
in Lincoln's Inn Fields.


IV.