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
Music of Denmark an opera by the Italian Bartolomeo Bernardi. Reinhard Keiser, the prolific opera composer from Hamburg, presented his works in Copenhagen from 1721 to 1723. In 1748 "Den Danske Skueplads" (the Danish Theatre) moved into a new building and in 1779 "Det Kongelige Kapel" (the Royal Danish Orchestra) became a permanent attachment. Pietro Mingotti, from Venice, who had formed an opera company was invited to Copenhagen by Queen Louise in 1747. His members included Christoph Willibald Gluck and Giuseppe Sarti. In 1756, Sarti provided the music for the first "syngespil" which, in the early 1790s, became established as a popular national