Handel began to compose operas in Hamburg, where he spent the years 1703–06; his principal influences were Johann Mattheson and Reinhard Keiser. At that time, German opera as a genre was still not clearly defined; in

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• Place: in and around the city of Jerusalem during the First Crusade
• Time: 1099
Act 1

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In a letter dedicating the new opera to Queen Anne, Hill wrote of his choice of story: "I could not chuse a finer Subject than the celebrated story

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The amount of recycled music in Rinaldo is such that Dean and Knapp call it an "anthology" of the best works from Handel's Italian period. Sadie raises the question of whether the opera's dramaturgyis affected by the small amount of music written

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1717 libretto and subsequent amendments
The main musical numbers from the 1711 libretto are listed, together with changes and replacements from

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No complete autograph score exists; fragments representing about three-quarters of the 1711 score are held by the Royal Music Library (a

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Early performances
The 19th-century music critic George Hogarthwrote of Rinaldo that "[t]he romantic interest of the subject, the charms of the music, and

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