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Handel's operas belong to a tradition, based on virtuoso singers (many of them castratos) and the almost exclusive dominance of the da capo aria, that has not only been totally lost but, since it differed radically from later developments in operatic genres, was for long universally condemned as naive, primitive and beyond hope of revival. Although the operas were acknowledged to be full of beautiful music, until very recently anyone who claimed that they qualified Handel as not merely an inventor of marvellous tunes but one of the greatest of dramatic composers would have been dismissed as a crank. To justify such a claim it is necessary to demonstrate the dramatic as well as the musical potency of the operas, and to show that the two components amount to something more than the sum of the parts. Great opera is great theatre, but recognisable as such only if both the musical and the stage performance attain the highest standard. Although the tradition of performance was lost, it is not beyond recovery. On the musical side recent years have seen much progress, thanks to the movement for reviving early music in a form approximating as closely as possible to the manner of its original performance (the term ‘authenticity’ begs too many questions). It is the theatrical side that lags behind. From writers of the period and the research of modern scholars, backed up by the evidence of librettos and scores, we know a great deal about the theatres in which Handel's operas were performed and how they operated, about the scenery and costumes, about stage movement and the style of acting and singing.
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