Please accept a promise from me in his name that I will always live in the religion in which he died.

In Berlin Meyerbeer faced however many problems including the enmity of the jealous Gaspare Spontini who since 1820 had been court Kapellmeister and director of the Berlin Hofoper. In a birthday greeting from Rossi's wife in 1817 occurs the earliest use discovered of Meyerbeer's adopted forename 'Giacomo'. His public career from 1831 until his death during which he remained throughout a dominating figure in the world of opera was summarized by his contemporary Hector Berlioz who claimed that he 'has not only the luck to be talented but the talent to be lucky.

With his 1831 opera Robert le diable and its successors he gave the genre of grand opera 'decisive character'. His operas made him the most frequently performed composer at the world's leading opera houses in the nineteenth century. Meyerbeer's grand opera style was achieved by his merging of German orchestra style with Italian vocal tradition.