George Frideric Handel was born and grew up in Halle, Germany. In 1703, the 18-year-old composer took up residence in Hamburg, where he remained until 1706. During this period he composed four operas, only the first of which, Almira, has survived more or less intact.
About Handel’s lost Hamburg operas in brief
George Frideric Handel was born and grew up in Halle, Germany. In 1703, the 18-year-old composer took up residence in Hamburg, Germany, where he remained until 1706. During this period he composed four operas, only the first of which, Almira, has survived more or less intact. Of the other three, the music for Nero is lost, while only short orchestral excerpts from Florindo and Daphne survive. The brainchild of the exiled Duke Schleswig-Gottorf, The Kapellmeister was designed by Girolamo Sarto, the first public opera house in northern Germany. It was the first to be established outside of Italy, and was the home of the famous opera house, the Oper am Gänsemarkt, which is still open today. It is located in the centre of Hamburg, near the city’s famous Opera House, which was built in the 12th century. It has now been turned into a museum, the Museum of Opera, Music and Science, with a collection of works by Handel and other composers, including Giuseppe Verdi, Mozart, Puccini and Puccino. The museum is open to the public, and has a museum collection of Handel’s works, including some of his operas and other works by other artists, such as Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” and “The Nutcracker” Handel died in Hamburg in 1706, leaving behind a wife and three children. He is survived by his wife, two daughters and a son, and a daughter-in-law, all of whom are now living in the United States, where they have a large opera house of their own, the Metropolitan Opera, in Washington, D.C.
Handel is buried in the St. Paul’s Cathedral in New York City, along with his wife and two children, including a son who died in a car accident in the early 1990s. He was buried alongside his wife’s parents, who are still living in Hamburg and are buried in a nearby village. The couple had a son named Karl, who was born in 1685 and died in 1702. Handels’ father, Georg Händel, was not a music lover, and did not at first appreciate or encourage his son’s precocious talents. By the age of ten Handel had become an accomplished organist; his playing in the royal chapel at Weißenfels impressed the duke, who persuaded him that the boy should have a proper musical education. In February 1702 Handel enrolled at the University of Halle to study law. In March he took up the post of organist at Halle’s Calvinist cathedral, a prestigious appointment for one so young and indicative of his burgeoning musical reputation in the city. In Berlin Handel first experienced Italian opera, and may have met the Italian composers Giovanni Bononcini and Attilio Ariosti, who were writing operas for Frederick’s court.
You want to know more about Handel’s lost Hamburg operas?
This page is based on the article Handel’s lost Hamburg operas published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
