Handel had been met in Hanover by English noblemen who invited him to England, and their invitation was accepted by permission of the elector, afterwards George I, to whom he was then Chapel-master. Immediately upon Handel's arrival in England, in 1710, Aaron Hill, who was directing the Haymarket Theatre, bespoke of him an opera, the subject being of Hill's own devising and sketching, on the story of Rinaldo and Armida in Tasso's
Jerusalem Delivered
. G. Rossi wrote the Italian words.
Rinaldo
, brought out in 1711, on the 24th of February, had a run of fifteen nights, and is accounted one of the best of the 35 operas composed by Handel for the English stage. Two airs in it,
Cara sposa
and
Lascia ch'io pianga
(the latter still admired as one of the purest expressions of his genius), made a great impression. In the same season the Haymarket produced
Hamlet