nothing of any special interest until on the last night Handel offered his
subscribers a new type of entertainment in the shape of _Acis and Galatea_.

On Handel's birthday, February 23, Bernard Gates, the master of the
children of the Chapel Royal, arranged a private performance of _Esther_,
which had been neglected since its first performance at Canons some twelve
years before. Among the boys who sang and acted in the "masque" were Beard,
who afterwards became Handel's favourite tenor, and Randall, eventually
Professor of Music in Cambridge, who took the part of Esther. The
performance was repeated twice before a paying public at the Crown and
Anchor Tavern, where concerts were often held, and on April 20 a rival
organisation advertised a further performance of Esther at the concert-room
in Villiers Street. On this occasion it was described as "an oratorio or
sacred drama," and was evidently sung without action. Princess Anne wished
to see it on the stage of the opera-house but the Bishop of London forbade
a dramatic performance. As the bishop's ban was ultimately the cause of
Handel's turning his attention to oratorio in preference to opera, it has
sometimes been suggested that Handel might have created a new type of
national English opera on biblical subjects if only his lordship had not
interfered. In justice to the bishop it has to be pointed out that his
objection seems to have been raised, not against the dramatic presentation
of Bible stories (for he did not discountenance Gates' performances by the
choristers at the Crown and Anchor), but against their presentation in
a regular theatre by professional opera singers. Such prejudice may be
difficult to understand at the present day, but even well into the middle
of the nineteenth century persons of severe morality regarded the theatre
and all who belonged thereto with stern disapproval, and the notorious
scandals associated with Cuzzoni and Faustina, to say nothing of Heidegger,
were not likely to have washed out the memory of Jeremy Collier's
denunciations.