[clarification needed] Early in 1704, when he was conducting the operas Nebukadnezar and Salomon in Hamburg, the season had to be unexpectedly concluded, for reasons most likely related to government affairs.

Händel would put on what was planned as a double opera, but was in fact two, Florindo and Daphne; he did that in January 1708, coming back from Italy.

Keiser would counter that by eventually coming out with La forza dell'amore, oder, Die von Paris entführte Helena and Desiderius, König der Langobarden in the 1708/09 season, not as the theatre's manager, but as someone responding to political insecurities causing the opera company to be disorderly.

[3] Keiser would continue as the director probably when things got more stable in the city, maybe in 1710, and he advanced in composing, coming with his own passion music in 1712, which Händel would readily challenge in 1716.

After the dissolution of the opera troupe, Keiser returned once more to Hamburg, but changes in its operation made repeating past success difficult.

In 1728 he became the St. Mary's Cathedral precentor of Hamburg (succeeding Johann Mattheson to the post), and wrote largely church music there until his death in 1739.