Though his works are rarely performed today, Giacomo Meyerbeer at the peak of his career, especially after the success of Robert le diable in 1831, was perhaps the single most celebrated operatic composer in Europe.

It is a measure of his prominence, for example, that Alexander Dumas... More information wrote a performance of Robert le diable into the plot of his great novel, The Count of Monte Cristo. Dumas tells us that Meyerbeer was “the favorite composer of the day,” that this was his “most admired production,” and that a staging in Paris was bound to attract “an audience consisting of the very elite of Parisian fashion.”

Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots (1836) was as complete a success as its precursor had been. One admirer has written that Les Huguenots “carried Meyerbeer’s fame to the farthest ends of the world.” His operas also notably include Ein Feldlager in Schlesien (1844), and the posthumously produced L’Africaine (1865). Less information