Act IV: 'Mi batte il cor... O Paradiso' (Vasco da Gama) (L'Africaine (L'Africana))

Meyerbeer and Eugène Scribe began the opera in 1837, abandoned it, and returned around 1852 with a new plot built around Vasco da Gama; the working title Vasco de Gama belongs to that stage. Meyerbeer kept revising until his death in 1864, which came the day after the copying of the full score was completed. François-Joseph Fétis prepared the performing version, cutting heavily, and the work reached the Paris Opéra in April 1865 under the title L'Africaine. What is heard today is therefore an edited posthumous text: the composer never settled the piece himself.