Au Ménestrel, Paris, 1865. Uploaded, stiched and restored by JLPC · Public domain

Defined French grand opera with Robert le diable (1831) and Les Huguenots (1836), fusing German orchestral writing with Italian vocal tradition on librettos by Eugène Scribe, and made Paris the opera capital of the nineteenth century in the process. Born to a wealthy Jewish family in Berlin, he became the most frequently performed composer at Europe's leading opera houses of his era; his final opera, L'Africaine, premiered after his death.