THIS is the second half of what was originally intended as a single-volume study of Handel's operatic career, undertaken in collaboration with the late John Merrill Knapp in the mid-1960s. It soon became apparent that the plan was too ambitious. No study in depth of Handel's operas, nearly forty in number and a conspicuous landmark in the history of the Baroque musical theatre, had been published in any language. The amount of unpublished material, both in the scores themselves and linked with their performance and reception, was so vast that we decided to split the work into two volumes, making the break first at the temporary collapse of the Royal Academy of Music in 1728, and then, when it became apparent that this would have resulted in two volumes of unequal size, two years earlier at the arrival of Faustina Bordoni in London in the spring of 1726.

The first volume, Handel's Operas 1704–1726, was published by Oxford University Press in 1987, two years later than planned; a paperback edition, lightly revised by me after J.M.K.'s death in 1993, followed in 1995. Before the completion of the first volume J.M.K. withdrew from the project in circumstances explained in its Preface. He had however contributed some notes, of which I have made occasional use, for the early chapters in the present volume before the decision was taken to move the division back to 1726.

The popularity of Handel's operas after their long neglect, increasing as it were by compound interest over the last half-century, has led to the release from public record offices and private archives of more and more material throwing light on the background, performance and reception of the operas. Handel's was an age of settled prosperity and increased leisure, at least for the upper and middle classes, with consequently a greater demand for entertainment of all kinds. For the whole period (nearly fifty years) of his residence in England Handel was continually in the public eye as a provider and eventually a national figurehead. His activities were announced, reported and discussed in the rapidly expanding press (not only in London), in pamphlets and in private correspondence. He himself seems to have written relatively few letters; not many have survived, and surely most recipients would have kept any they received.