After his early visits to Italy, Handel’s desire to experience music in all the main European countries was great enough for him to insist that, on his appointment as Kapellmeister in Hanover in 1710, he should have an immediate twelve months leave of absence to visit England. The Elector’s apparent generosity in so readily agreeing to this has to be seen in its wider context, for as heir to the British throne he was in effect simply allowing the transfer of his employee from one court to his next. Handel was favourably received at Queen Anne’s court, and certainly performed there once, but his eyes were already on Vanbrugh’s new opera house, the Queen’s Theatre in the Haymarket. With his introduction to the publisher John Walsh, numerous society contacts and the sensational success of the first Italian opera especially composed for London, Rinaldo, which opened on 24 February 1711, his reputation seems already to have been partly made.