Il crociato in Egitto

Il crociato in Egitto (The Crusader in Egypt) is an opera in two acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer, with a libretto by Gaetano Rossi. It was first performed at La Fenice theatre, Venice on 7 March 1824. The part of Armando was sung by the famous castrato, Giovanni Battista Velluti; the opera was probably the last ever written to feature a castrato. It is the last of Meyerbeer's series of operas in Italian, and became the foundation of the composer's international success.

After its successful Venetian premiere, Il Crociato was staged at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence (7 May 1824), Trieste (winter 1824–1825), Padua (summer 1825), and at His Majesty's Theatre in London (3 June 1825, the first of Meyerbeer's operas to be performed in England, also with Velluti in the cast). This encouraged Rossini, who was then managing the Théâtre-Italien, to arrange for its performance in Paris (25 September 1825), where the role of Armando was taken by the mezzo-soprano Giuditta Pasta and Aladino by Nicolas Levasseur. For each of these productions Meyerbeer revised the work and composed new music for parts of it. Over the next twenty to thirty years the opera was performed in almost every major opera house in Europe, and even in Mexico City, Havana and Constantinople.

The opera formed the basis for the composer's future great success. As remarked by the critic of the London magazine, The Harmonicon, in a review of the 1825 production in Trieste:

Of all living composers, Meyerbeer is the one who most happily combines the easy, flowing and expressive melodies of Italy with the severer beauties, the grander accomplishments, of the German school.

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