Berenice

Berenice (HWV 38) is an opera in three acts by George Frideric Handel to a 1709 Antonio Salvi libretto, Berenice, regina d'Egitto, or Berenice, Queen of Egypt. Handel began the music in December 1736; the premiere took place at Covent Garden Theatre in London on 18 May 1737 — but was unsuccessful, with just three further performances. Set circa 81 B.C., Berenice traces the life of Berenice III of Egypt, daughter of Ptolemy IX, the main character in another Handel opera, Tolomeo. Background The German-born Handel, after spending some of his early career composing operas and other pieces in Italy, settled in London, where in 1711 he had brought Italian opera for the first time with his opera Rinaldo. An enormous success, Rinaldo created a craze in London for Italian opera seria, a form focused overwhelmingly on solo arias for the star virtuoso singers. Handel had presented new operas in London for years with great success. One of the major attractions in Handel's operas was the star castrato Senesino, whose relationship with the composer was often stormy and who eventually left Handel's company to appear with the rival Opera of the Nobility, set up in 1733. Handel moved to a different theatre, Covent Garden, and engaged different singers, but there were neither sufficient audience for opera in London nor aristocratic supporters to back two opera houses at once, and both opera companies found themselves in difficulty. None of Handel's three new operas in the 1736–37 season repeated the success of his earlier works, and he suffered a breakdown in his health, as reported by his friend Lord Shaftesbury: "Great fatigue and disappointment, affected him so much, that he was this Spring struck with the Palsy, which took entirely away, the use of 4 fingers of his right hand; and totally disabled him from Playing: And when the heats of the Summer 1737 came on, the Disorder seemed at times to affect his Understanding."