_Serse_, it must be explained, is a comic opera, and the only comic opera
that Handel ever wrote. What induced him to attempt this style it is
difficult to conceive. It is of course true that the failure of Handel's
earlier operas was largely due to the success of _The Beggar's
Opera_ (1728), and of other comic entertainments which succeeded
it--_Hurlothrumbo_ (1729), _Pasquin_ (1736) and _The Dragon of Wantley_
(1737). A new type of comic opera had arisen in Italy too, and comic
_intermezzi_ were first seen in Italian grand opera in London in January
1737, although it was not until 1748 that a real company of Italian
comic-opera singers came over to England. But what is more important to
notice is that the whole style of Italian opera was changing during the
second quarter of the century. Handel had continued to develop his own
style, based on the grand manner of old Scarlatti, but Handel's operas were
practically unknown outside London and Hamburg; in Italy, Scarlatti's style
had already become old-fashioned before his death in 1725, and opera was
moving on towards the lighter and flimsier manner of Galuppi, who first
came to London in this year of _Serse_, 1738.

In choosing the libretto of _Serse_, Handel seems to have been making a
desperate attempt to keep up with the taste of the day. Humour he had
in plenty; one has only to recall _Acis and Galatea_. But the humour of
_Serse_, diverting as it is to the modern historical student, is neither
the musical nor the dramatic humour of 1737; the plot bears no resemblance
whatever to the Neapolitan comic operas of Vinci and Pergolesi, but rather
recalls the very early operas, based on Spanish comedies, composed by
Alessandro Scarlatti in the 1680's. _Serse_ was revived a few years ago
in Germany, considerably cut about and reduced to one act, in which
arrangement it had some success; but we can well understand its complete
failure on its first London production.