About the work
La caravane du Caire is an opéra-ballet in three acts by André Grétry to a libretto by Étienne Morel de Chédeville, premiered before the court at the Château de Fontainebleau on 30 October 1783; the public Paris premiere followed on 15 January 1784. Tradition holds that the idea, at least in part, came from the Count of Provence, later King Louis XVIII.
Plot
A caravan bound for Cairo is attacked; the slave trader Husca is travelling with the enslaved Zélime and her husband Saint-Phar. Saint-Phar buys his own freedom by fighting off the attackers, but not Zélime’s, who is sold to the Pasha in Cairo. Only Saint-Phar’s courage and the help of the Frenchman Florestan, who had earlier saved the Pasha’s treasure ship, free Zélime from the seraglio.
Cultural significance
With over 500 performances by 1829, the work was among Grétry’s most successful large-scale operas, remaining in the Paris Opéra’s repertoire almost every year between 1785 and 1791 and again from 1806 to 1828.