George Frideric Handel exhibition marking the tercentenary of the composer's birth calls them two men of the late eighteenth century "who have left us solid evidence of the means by which they indulged their enthusiasm". With his English oratorios, such as "Messiah" and "Solomon", the coronation anthems, and other works including "Water Music" and "Music for the Royal Fireworks", Handel became a national icon in Britain, and featured in the BBC series, "The Birth of British Music: Handel – The Conquering Hero". After his death, Handel's Italian operas fell into obscurity, except for selections such as the aria from "Serse", "Ombra mai fù".
Mikhail Sokolovsky (composer) revived. Sokolovsky's contemporary, composer Yevstigney Fomin later revised the music of the opera adding an overture to it. Under the reign of autocratic Czar Nicholas I of Russia, verses of Sokolovsky that were critical of Nicholas's predecessors were often sung at anti-Nicholas rallies. Mikhail Sokolovsky (composer) Mikhail Matveyevich Sokolovsky ( (1756—after 1795) was a late 18th-century Russian opera composer, conductor and violinist. Sokolovsky played the violin in the orchestra of the Maddox Theatre in Moscow. It is known that he also taught singing at the university. The music of the renowned-in-its-day opera "The miller who was a wizard, a cheat