"Opera seria", the form of Italian opera that Handel composed for London, focused overwhelmingly on solo arias and recitatives for the star singers and contained very little else; they did not feature separate choruses. With the English oratorios Handel had the opportunity to mix operatic arias in English for the soloists with large choruses of the type that he used in the Coronation anthems. The oratorios found a wider audience among more social classes than the aristocratic audience who had sponsored and enjoyed Handel's Italian operas. "Solomon" was widely recognised by commentators of the day as a eulogy for Georgian England, with the just and wise King Solomon representing King George II, and the mighty, prosperous kingdom of Israel reflecting the similarly happy state of England at the time of the work's premiere, in the view of its creators. However, a 21st-century commentator has noted that "Solomon" was not a great commercial success with London audiences of the time, possibly because of complexities and ambiguities in its portrayal of the central character King Solomon.