L’Africaine

L’Africaine is an opera in five acts with music by Giacomo Meyerbeer and a libretto by Eugène Scribe. The composer was already dead at the time of the premiere of L’Africaine on Friday, 28 April 1865, and his work did not enjoy the usual benefit of the careful revisions he was in the habit of making during rehearsals to improve the quality of his compositions on the stage. The opera was a success from the start, however, and it was almost the only piece billed at the Imperial Academy of Music…