Robert le Diable

For the mediaeval legend, see Robert the Devil.
Robert le diable (Robert the Devil) is an opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, often regarded as the first grand opera. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Casimir Delavigne and has little connection to the medieval legend of Robert the Devil. Originally planned as a three-act opéra comique, "Meyerbeer persuaded Scribe to change (the opera)...to a five-act grand opera". The dramatic music, harmony and orchestration of Robert, its melodramatic plot, and its sensational stage effects (especially the Ballet of the Nuns) made it an overnight success and instantly confirmed Meyerbeer as the leading opera composer of his age, and compelled Frédéric Chopin, who was in the audience, to say "If ever magnificence was seen in the theatre, I doubt that it reached the level of splendour shown in Robert.....It is a masterpiece...Meyerbeer has made himself immortal".