his ambition to distinguish himself as a
virtuoso, which his talent undoubtedly permitted, if he had not been
diverted from it by the success of his early attempts at opera. He was
taught by a pupil of Clementi, and for a while by Clementi himself, as
well as by other distinguished teachers, and if reports are to be
believed concerning his playing, he must have become by the time he
was twenty years old one of the very first virtuosi in Europe. His
studies in theory were carried on under Abbe Vogler, at Darmstadt,
where he was a schoolmate with C.M. von Weber and Gansbacher, and
later with Salieri at Vienna. At Darmstadt he wrote an oratorio "God
and Nature," which was performed by the _Singakademie_, of Berlin, in
1811; and an opera, "_Alimelek_" ("The Two Caliphs"), which also was
successfully given at Munich in the Grand Opera House in the same
year, 1811. Both works were anonymous. The opera made considerable
reputation, and was played in several other cities. Upon Salieri's
direction he went to Venice, where he arrived in 1815, to find
Rossini's star in the ascendant, and all Venice, and Italy as well,
wild over the bewitching melodies of "_Tancredi_." Meyerbeer, having
that vein of cleverness and adaptability so characteristic of his
race, immediately became a composer of Italian operas, and produced in
Venice, "_Romilda e Constanza_" (Padua, 1815), "_Semiramide
Riconosciuta_" (Turin, 1819), "_Emma di Resburgo_" (Venice, 1820), the
latter also making a certain amount of reputation in Germany as "_Emma
von Leicester_." Then followed "_Margherita d'Anjou_" (Milan, _La
Scala_, 1820), "_L'Esule di Granata_" (Milan, 1822) and "_Il Crociato
in Egitto"_ (Venice, 1824). All of these were Italian operas, with
melody in quite the Rossini vein, with the same attention as Rossini
to the light, the pleasing and the vocal, but with a certain added
element of German cleverness of harmony and thematic treatment.

[Illustration: Fig. 77.

GIACOMO MEYERBEER.]

He now returned to Berlin, but his opera, "_Das Brandenburger Thor_,"
which he had written for Berlin, was not performed, owing to opposing
intrigues. Nevertheless, for about six years Meyerbeer remained in his
native city, married, and presently lost two infant children. In 1830
he took up his abode in Paris, where already his "_Il Crociato_" had
been performed, in 1826, and in that city, as the leading composer for
grand opera, he lived six years, and finally died there