musical theatre effects than traditional Italian opera. Moreover, Il crociato with its exotic historical setting, onstage bands, spectacular costumes and themes of culture clash, exhibited many of the features on which the popularity of grand opera would be based. What became the essential features of 'grand opéra' were foreseen by Étienne de Jouy, the librettist of Guillaume Tell, in an essay of 1826: Division into five acts seems to me the most suitable for any opera that would reunite the elements of the genre: [...] where the dramatic focus was combined with the marvellous: where the nature and majesty of the subject [...] demanded the addition of attractive festivities and splendid civil and religious ceremonies to the natural flow of the action, and consequently needed frequent scene changes. France The first grand operas (1828–1829) The first opera of the grand opera canon is, by common consent, La muette de Portici (1828) by Daniel François Auber. This tale of revolution set in Naples in 1647 (and ending with an eruption of Mount Vesuvius into which the heroine precipitates herself), embodied the musical and scenic sensationalism which were to be grand opera's hallmark. The libretto for La muette was by Eugène Scribe, a dominant force in French theatre of the time who specialized in melodramatic versions (often involving extremes of coincidence) of historical topics which were well-tailored for the public taste of the time. This was his first libretto for the Opéra; he was to write or be associated with many of the libretti of the most successful grand operas which followed. La muettes reputation was enhanced by its being the touchpaper for a genuine revolution when it was produced in Brussels in 1830. In 1829, this was followed by Rossini's swansong Guillaume Tell. The resourceful Rossini, having largely created a style of Italian opera to which European theatre had been in thrall, recognized the potential of new technology, larger theatres and orchestras and modern instrumentation, and proved in this work that he could rise to meet them in this undoubted grand opera. However, his comfortable financial position, and the change in political climate after the July Revolution, persuaded him to quit the field, and this was his last public composition. The golden age of grand opera: 1830–1850 After the Revolution, the new regime determined to privatize the previously state-run Opéra and the winner of the contract was a businessman who acknowledged