The aim of this paper is to show the links between Handel’s London operas and the contemporary French tragédie en musique. Indeed, the subject matter of Handel’s « magic operas » is often the same as that of the French works, at least when they are not downright adaptations of them. Such links actually date back to the English semi- opera, a form which shares with the French traditions two major characteristics : an aesthetic, derived from court entertainments, that is very much based on the presence of ballet and expensive machinery; an appropriate subject-matter that lends itself to an allegorical reading glorifying both prince and hero. Both subject-matter and French influences correspond to a moralizing perspective that is ideally suited to the English poets’ intention to give the basically entertaining genre of the Italian opera a more edifying and elevated aim.