This work presents a critical historical edition with detailed commentary of the correspondence, journals and diaries of Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most significant and influential 19th century composers. They provide the most informative and comprehensive documents from the contemporary musical theatre, with its centres in Paris, London, Upper Italy, and Meyerbeer's home town of Berlin.

In addition to the composers' works-held in the music department of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin State Library), those held in the renowned music archive of the Sing-Akademie in Berlin were also filmed for the collection from 2002 to 2009. This archive was only recently rediscovered and includes a number of sensational discoveries of works by great composers never performed in public. For decades after World War II, the famous collection was pronounced missing, before it was rediscovered in Kiev in 1999, by a team of researchers from Harvard University. In December 2001 the music archive of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin returned from Kiev to Berlin, where it has since remained, as a permanent loan in the music section of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. The 241 boxes in which the archive is still kept today, contain approx. 264,100 pages of autographs, copies and a few rare musical prints - primarily first editions with handwritten dedications and notes. These valuable music manuscripts have been examined, collated and filmed in their entirety, for the first time, for this microfiche edition.