1738 was a year of stiff competition, challenges, and sublime music making for Handel. The operas Serse and Faramondo were premiered along with the pasticcio Alessandro Severo.  Handel contended with the extremely popular burlesque opera The Dragon of Wantley for ticket sales, and lost, and, making the transition away from Italian opera to English language oratorio, he composed the transcendent oratorio Saul. All of this will be explored in an afternoon of music making and discussion by Randall Scotting and Marie van Rhijn.