Music for the Royal Fireworks made clear to Handel that King George had a preference for only martial instruments and drums, and hoped there would be "no fiddles". Handel omitted the string instruments against his will. Also against Handel's will, there was a full rehearsal of the music in Vauxhall Gardens and not in Green Park. On 21 April 1749 an audience, claimed to be over twelve thousand people, each paying two shillings and six pence (half a crown) rushed to get there, causing a three-hour traffic jam of carriages on London Bridge, the only vehicular route to the area south of the river. Six
Royal Patriarchal Music Seminary of Lisbon had passed he was already recruiting Italian opera singers and others to establish a professional opera company within the court's structure. Among several others, probably the most important of these was the Neapolitan-trained organist and composer, Davide Perez who in 1752 was appointed as "mestre de capela" at the Royal Chapel and music master to the royal princesses. Within of that same year, he opened within the palace building a new theatre called the "Teatro do Forte" which he had created by converting the room in which foreign ambassadors had once been presented. A number of operas by Perez, Johann