delicious fascination of Italian melody. He determined to transplant
it into the rugged soil of his own masculine musical science; and three
years after the Rossinian revelation at Venice, his first Italian opera,
"Romilda e Costanza," was produced at that dismal old metropolis of
necromancy, Padua, Signora Pisaroni taking the principal part. It
pleased, as did his next work, "Semiramide Riconosciuta," produced at
Turin, though neither was so successful as his "Emma di Risburgo," first
heard at Venice, and for some time a rival in popularity to "Tancredi."

At this period Meyerbeer adopted the name of Giacomo,--the Italian
translation of Jacob,--which he ever after retained. His true name was
Meyer Liebmann Beer, but he suppressed the Liebmann, because that word
in German, when joined with Beer, could by weak punsters be translated
into "a philanthropic bear"; so he Italianized his pre-nomen, dropped
his middle name, and joined the two other words in one,--the result of
all these liberties in nomenclature being "Giacomo Meyerbeer."

Thus, doubly armed with an Italian name and an Italian reputation, he
returned to Germany, but was coldly welcomed. Even Weber charged him
with being a renegade to the cause of German Art, and, while "Emma di
Risburgo" was played at one of the Berlin theatres, had "The Two
Caliphs" revived at another. Meyerbeer thus could have heard his two
styles of composition exemplified in the same night. Weber, indeed,
always looked upon Meyerbeer's Italian operas as a sad falling away from
grace, and in a letter written to his brother, Godefroy,--the fourth of
the little group of Darmstadt students,--says,--

"Meyerbeer has promised on his return to Berlin to write a German opera.
God be praised for it! I appealed strongly to his conscience in the
matter."

Returning to Italy, Meyerbeer produced "Margherita d' Angiu" at La
Scala, Milan, following it with "L'Esule di Granata"; and then in 1824
Venice saw and heard the "Crociato." This last opera made the tour of
the world, carried the name of the composer to every place where musical
art was cultivated, and won for Meyerbeer, from the distant Emperor of
Brazil, the decoration of the Cross of the South.

In Paris alone--Paris, which afterwards made such an idol of the
composer--did the "Crociato" fail to meet with immediate success. In
nonsense and folly it may be truly said of the Parisians that "a little
child shall lead them"; and so it happened