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How did The Beggar’s Opera affect George Frideric Handel’s opera career?

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Oil portrait of composer Georg Frideric Handel by Thomas Hudson, showing Handel in a red coat with gold trim, white wig, and holding a sheet of music. — George Frideric Handel George Frideric Handel, oil on canvas by Thomas Hudson, c. 1736; in the Foundling Museum, London.

The 1728 production of The Beggar’s Opera, with a libretto by John Gay, significantly contributed to the decline of George Frideric Handel’s career as an opera impresario in London.12

By satirizing the conventions of highbrow Italian opera and featuring bawdy characters alongside popular English ballads, the work became a massive success. This popularity spawned numerous imitations, which accustomed London audiences to hearing staged plays in the vernacular rather than the foreign-language, formal style of Neapolitan opera that Handel had championed for years.132

As public taste shifted away from Italian opera, Handel faced increasing financial difficulties and competition. While he continued to compose operas until 1741, the changing cultural climate—exacerbated by the success of The Beggar’s Opera—eventually led him to pivot his focus toward the creation of English-language oratorios, which resonated more effectively with the sensibilities of the middle-class public.12