What is Giacomo Meyerbeer?
[[Image:Giacomo_Meyerbeer_nuorempana.jpg|thumb|235px|right|Giacomo Meyerbeer, [[lithograph]] by Josef Kriehuber, 1847]] '''Giacomo Meyerbeer''' (born near [[Berlin]], 5 September 1791; died [[Paris]], 2 May 1864) was a famous [[Germany|German]]-born [[opera]] [[composer]]. He was the most important composer of [[France|French]] [[Grand opera]] during the 1830s and 1840s. Although he was tremendously popular in his day, his music is not often played now. ==Life== ===Early years=== [[Image:Spa_Meyerbeer_R01.jpg|thumb|left|Statue of Meyerbeer in the Belgian town of [[Spa, Belgium|Spa]], where he stayed many times]] Meyerbeer was born into a rich [[Jew]]ish family in Tasdorf (now a part of Rüdersdorf), near [[Berlin]]. His father owned large [[sugar]] [[refinery|refineries]] in Berlin and in [[Italy]]. His mother also came from a rich family. Her father had been important in Germany’s struggle to be free of the French in 1812 when [[Napoleon]] was trying to conquer much of [[Europe]]. Giacomo’s mother did a lot of good work trying to help people who were wounded during the [[Napoleonic Wars|Napoleonic wars]]. Many famous people came to the house where Giacomo’s family lived. Some of the visitors were from the royal [[Prussia]]n court, including the future King [[Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia|Friedrich Wilhelm IV]]. The [[naturalist]] and [[explorer]] [[Alexander von Humboldt]] also visited them quite often. The first piano teacher the boy had was Franz Lauska, who also taught the royal princes. He also had lessons in [[Composition (music)|composition]]. Meyerbeer first played in public in 1801 playing [[Mozart]]'s Piano Concerto in D Minor in Berlin. He wrote his first [[opera]] in 1810. In the same year he went to [[Darmstadt]] to study with the well-known [[music theory|music theorist]] [[Abbé Vogler]]. There he met the young [[Carl Maria von Weber]] who was also a pupil of Vogler. He left Vogler in 1811 and tried to get some work in [[Munich]]. In [[1813]] he found he had been offered a job