ABSTRACT
Whatever historical construction is placed on the stage music of the 1820s, Meyerbeer's earliest forays into Parisian musical and theatrical culture are important both for their immediate effect on Parisian life and for their influence on the subsequent course of music history. Critical tools that acknowledge completed and premièred works alone will permit the identification of two international successes only: Meyerbeer's last complete Italian opera, Il crociato in Egitto, and his first complete French work, Robert le diable. The diversity of the activity suggests several possible negotiations with Meyerbeer's career in the 1820s. Meyerbeer's Parisian activities in the 1820s encompass systems of meaning that are alien to a late twentieth-century musical culture.
