By the early 1730s, London audiences were losing interest in Italian opera, and Handel's box-office receipts were falling. He had to rely on private subsidies from the nobility, which dried up once a rival company, the Opera of the Nobility, launched in 1730. Handel began writing English-language oratorios as alternatives to staged works, and Esther, revised for a 1732 London premiere attended by the royal family, was a hit. Three oratorios performed at Oxford's Sheldonian Theatre in 1733 drew such crowds that undergraduates reportedly sold their furniture for tickets. In July 1741 the librettist Charles Jennens sent him a new text, which became Messiah, and Handel's switch from opera to oratorio was complete.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.