Serse January, the third by 6 February, and Handel put the finishing touches to the score on 14 February. "Serse" was first performed at the King's Theatre, Haymarket on 15 April 1738. The first production was a complete failure. The audience may have been confused by the innovative nature of the work. Unlike his other operas for London, Handel included comic ("buffo") elements in "Serse". Although this had been typical for 17th-century Venetian works such as Cavalli's original setting of the libretto, by the 1730s an "opera seria" was expected to be wholly serious, with no mixing of the genres of
20th-century music had earlier been called race music, and country music. See also rock musical and rock opera. 20th-century music During the 20th century there was a huge increase in the variety of music that people had access to. Prior to the invention of mass market gramophone records (developed in 1892) and radio broadcasting (first commercially done ca. 1919–20), people mainly listened to music at live Classical music concerts or musical theatre shows, which were too expensive for many lower-income people; on early phonograph players (a technology invented in 1877 which was not mass-marketed until the mid-1890s); or by individuals performing music