London’s original music fandom rivalry: final days to discover Handel’s ‘Rival Queens’

Long before online fan armies, London audiences were taking sides over their favourite singers. A small display at the Foundling Museum explores the stars of Handel’s 1726 opera season, and this weekend is your last chance to catch it. 300 Years of the ‘Rival Queens’: Handel’s 1726 Opera Season closes on Sunday 25 October.

For music lovers, the story offers an intriguing connection between eighteenth-century celebrity and the way audiences talk about performers today. There are famous voices, competing loyalties and a composer writing for the personalities in front of him. Crucially, the museum’s account also challenges the simplest version of the rivalry: the singers themselves worked well together, while their supporters helped turn competition into conflict.

Meet the voices behind the nickname

The display focuses on a season that brought London two new Handel operas, Alessandro and Scipione. Italian soprano Faustina Bordoni arrived in a city where Francesca Cuzzoni was already an established star. Handel wrote significant roles for both women, and audiences came to associate them with the label ‘rival queens’.

That distinction between performers and their followers is what makes the subject worth looking at closely. A rivalry can become the headline even when collaboration is essential to the work on stage. Read the museum’s interpretation with that question in mind: whose behaviour created the story, and whose names ended up attached to it?

The wider musical setting included Senesino, an alto castrato for whom Handel wrote leading roles. Together, these figures place the operas within a world of highly sought-after voices and strong individual reputations. The exhibition is described as a small display in the museum’s top-floor Handel Gallery, so plan for it as part of a broader museum visit.

More to hear in the Handel Gallery

Beyond the temporary display, the Handel Gallery brings the composer’s work into focus through documents, images and objects. Its published highlights include his original will and codicils. A Messiah display includes a programme from the first performance in Dublin in 1742, correspondence with librettist Charles Jennens and a manuscript score associated with Handel’s bequest to the Foundling Hospital.

There is a listening element too. The gallery’s winged musical chairs allow visitors to explore recordings alongside programme notes, while a table-top timeline places the composer in the wider world around him. For anyone who finds a name or an opera unfamiliar, listening provides a useful starting point before returning to the written interpretation.

The museum also holds the Gerald Coke Handel Collection. Its collection page describes concert tickets, advertisements, playbills, programmes and newspaper cuttings among the material documenting musical life. Only a selection is displayed at a time. That is a reminder that music history survives in everyday objects as well as famous scores: a ticket or programme can reveal how an audience encountered a performance.

Tickets, times and getting there

The museum is at 40 Brunswick Square, London WC1N 1AZ. Its visitor information puts it around four minutes on foot from Russell Square station, or approximately ten minutes from King’s Cross St Pancras and Euston. Check your route before setting off, particularly if you are combining the visit with other weekend plans.

Regular opening hours are 10am to 5pm from Tuesday to Saturday and 11am to 5pm on Sunday; the museum is closed on Mondays. Adult admission is listed at £14.50, or £13.50 when booked online. Visitors aged 21 and under enter free, and other free or reduced-price categories are available. Check the ticketing page for eligibility and current arrangements.

Tickets include the collections and exhibitions, making it sensible to leave time beyond the Handel display. The museum’s access page provides practical information for visitors with access requirements. Check this alongside the amended opening-hours list before booking, rather than relying on a general venue listing.

A different kind of weekend music discovery

You do not need to know every aria to find something interesting here. Start with the singers and their audience, then try listening to a piece in the gallery. The final weekend offers a chance to explore how celebrity, talent and fandom interacted in London three centuries ago — and to consider which parts of that relationship still feel familiar.