Handel"; the only professional musicians
present were Handel and Strada. "I never was so well entertained at an
opera! Mr. Handel was in the best humour in the world, and played lessons
and accompanied Strada and all the ladies that sung from seven o' the clock
till eleven." In such company Handel could evidently be more agreeable than
on the stage at rehearsals, and it is interesting to note that the amateurs
had no timidity about singing before Strada, and that Handel was willing to
accompany all of them alike.
In July 1734, Handel's lease of the King's Theatre came to an end, and he
found the theatre let at once by some means to his rivals, the Opera of the
Nobility. He therefore entered into an arrangement with Rich for the use of
his new theatre in Covent Garden, but his autumn season actually opened at
Lincoln's Inn Fields on October 5. The probable reason for this was that
the Princess Anne was spending the summer in England and wished to hear
some of Handel's operas. She was a remarkably gifted musician, and Handel
considered her to be the best of his pupils; she not only sang and played
the harpsichord well, but was thoroughly grounded in the theoretical side
of music and quite capable of composing a fugue, according to a Dutch
musician who became acquainted with her after her marriage.
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