ABSTRACT
Il crociato in Egitto was the last in a series of Italian operas written by Giacomo Meyerbeer between 1817 and 1824. Although his Emma di Resburgo and Margherita d'Anjou had been successful in Venice and Milan, it was Il crociato that put Meyerbeer in the first rank of internationally renowned composers of Italian opera. The compositional history of Il crociato has been summarized on many occasions, and the letters to Meyerbeer from Gaetano Rossi, the librettist, give us an almost unique insight into the relationship between librettist, impresario, performers and composer. The identification of Les chevaliers de Malte as the literary source of Il crociato, which unlocks so much about Meyerbeer's opera, comes from a French journalist.
