In 1849 Meyerbeer produced _Le Prophète_ in Paris, after many months of rehearsal. The score shows greater elevation and grandeur than that of _Les Huguenots_, but it is marred by contradictions and inequalities of style. In spite of its success and many undeniably beautiful sections, it betrays a falling off of the composer’s creative power; and it suffers from overemphasis. His two successful efforts to compete with the composers of French _opéra comique_ on their own ground, _L’Étoile du Nord_ and _Le pardon de Ploërmel_ (‘Dinorah’), were heard in Paris in 1854 and 1859, respectively. _L’Étoile du Nord_ was practically _Das Feldlager in Schlesien_, worked over and given a Russian instead of a Prussian background. Its success was troubled by the last illness and death of the composer’s mother, to whom he was passionately attached. A number of shorter vocal and instrumental compositions were written during the five years that elapsed between its _première_ and that of his second comic opera. This, _Le Pardon de Ploërmel_, was set to a libretto by Carré and Barbier. It is a charming pastoral work, easy, graceful, and picturesque. Its music throughout is tuneful and bright, but its inane libretto has much to do with the neglect into which it has fallen. From 1859 to 1864, besides the shorter compositions alluded to, Meyerbeer worked on various unfinished scores: a _Judith_, Blaze de Bury’s _Jeunesse de Goethe_, and others. He left a quantity of unfinished manuscripts of all kinds at his death. But mainly during this period he was busy with the score of _L’Africaine_, his last great opera. When at length, after years of hesitation, he had decided to have it performed and it was in active preparation at the opera, he was seized with a sudden illness and died, May 2, 1864. He had not been spared to witness the first performance of this which he loved above all his other operas and on which he lavished untold pains. It was produced, however, with regard to his wishes, April 28, 1865, and was a tremendous success. Scribe’s libretto contains many poetic scenes and effective situations and gave the composer every opportunity to manifest his genius. It is the most consistent of his works. In it he displays remarkable skill in delineation of characters and situations. His music, in the scenes that occur in India, is rich in glowing oriental color. Nowhere has he made a finer use of the hues of the orchestral palette. And in the fifth act, which crowns the entire work, he exalts to the highest emotional pitch the noble and touching character of his heroine, Selika, who sacrifices her love for Vasco da Gama, that the latter may be happy with the woman he loves. In dignity and serenity the melodies of _L’Africaine_ surpass those of the composer’s other operas. Its music, though in general less popular than that of _Les Huguenots_, is of a finer calibre, and the ceaseless striving after effect, so apparent in much of his other work, is absent in this.