Opéra comique in three acts by Christoph Willibald Gluck to a libretto after the opéra comique Les pèlerins de la Mecque (1726) by Alain-René Lesage and D’Orneval revised by Louis Hurtaut Dancourt. The opera had its premiere at the Burgtheater, Vienna, on 7 January 1764. A German-language version, Die unvermuthete Zusammenkunft oder Die Pilgrimme von Mecca, was given at the Kärntnertor Theater, Vienna, in 1776 and at the Burgtheater on 26 July 1780. Like Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail K384, The Pilgrim of Mecca is based on a Turkish theme. For the 1780 Vienna libretto, click here.
Gluck, Die Pilgrime von Mecca, title page of the libretto, Vienna 1780
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Gluck had attended a concert by Mozart’s sister-in- law, Aloysia Lange, on 11 March 1783. In his own 23 March 1783 Burgtheater concert Mozart performed variations (K455) on Gluck’s aria ‘Unser dummer Pöbel meint’ (‘Les hommes pieusement’).
Johann Granz Greipel, A Gluck Opera [Il Parnaso Confuso]. Performed at Schönbrunn, 1765 (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum)