A contemporary of Rossini and a leading composer in his own right, the prolific German composer Peter von Winter, who was trained in Mannheim and by Salieri, spent much of his life as court Kapellmeister in Munich. His opera Maometto was written for La Scala, Milan, where it was successfully staged on 45 occasions during the 1817 season. Based on a broadly anti-clerical play by Voltaire, this tragic melodrama hinges on the unwitting murder of a father, the Sheriff of Mecca, by a pair of young lovers who are unaware, until it is too late, that they are brother and sister. Maometto is unusual in successfully combining the Italian belcanto style of Rossini with elements of German opera. Mozart’s Così fan tutte and Beethoven’s Fidelio are two readily discernible influences.