Daphne or Die Verwandelte Daphne, HWV 4, is an opera composed by Handel for the Oper am Gänsemarkt in Hamburg in 1706, to a libretto by Hinrich Hinsch. The opera, based on the Daphne myth, was the second part of a double opera. Both works were first performed in Hamburg in January 1708. While the music is lost, the libretto survived, and two suites were reconstructed.
Title page of the libretto, 1708
Reinhard Keiser was a German opera composer based in Hamburg. He wrote over a hundred operas. Johann Adolf Scheibe considered him an equal to Johann Kuhnau, George Frideric Handel and Georg Philipp Telemann, but his work was largely forgotten for many decades.
Title page of an opera libretto
Manuscript of the beginning of an opera aria
Oper am Gänsemarkt