_Almira_, the libretto of which was partly in German and partly in Italian,
ran continuously for about twenty performances until February 25, when it
was succeeded by _Nero_, another opera which Handel had hastily composed
for the occasion. _Nero_, in which Mattheson sang the title part, was a
failure. The music is lost, but the libretto survives, and that is enough
to account for the collapse. The opera had three performances only. In the
very same season Keiser re-set _Nero_ to music himself, and brought it
out under the title of _Octavia_; shortly afterwards he did the same with
_Almira_, which was performed in August of the same year. Although Keiser's
operas were no more successful than Handel's, and his extravagance and
mismanagement forced him to leave Hamburg for three years in order to avoid
imprisonment, it is evident that he had made Handel's position in the
theatre impossible. Handel withdrew into private life and devoted himself
to earning a living by teaching. Mattheson says that Handel remained in
Hamburg until 1709, and that he still worked in the theatre, but the first
of these statements is certainly untrue, and the second probably so.
Mattheson himself left the theatre after the failure of Handel's _Nero_,
and his friendship with Handel seems to have come to an end.
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