32 (The Unexpected Encounter, or The Pilgrims to Mecca) is a three-act opéra comique, composed in 1763 by Christoph Willibald Gluck to a libretto by Louis Dancourt after the 1726 comédie en vaudeville Les pèlerins de la Mecque by Alain-René Lesage and d'Orneval.
It was performed in French in Brussels (1766), Bordeaux (as Ali et Rezia, 19 May 1766), Amsterdam (1768), The Hague (1768), Mannheim (1768), Copenhagen (1772), Liège (23 December 1776), Cassel (1780), Lille (17 November 1783), and Marseille (1784).
[2] The opera was first performed in Paris on 1 May 1790 by the Opéra-Comique at the first Salle Favart in an arrangement by Jean-Pierre Solié with the title Les fous de Médine, ou La rencontre imprévue.
[4] A new German translation by Carl Hagemann [de] with the title Die Pilger von Mekka was performed in Wiesbaden (October 1922), Basel (26 September 1924), Berlin (18 February 1928), and Vienna (June 1931).
[2][5] La rencontre imprévue was adapted and supplied with new music by Haydn as L'incontro improvviso (1775) and the 1780 Vienna revival of Gluck's version presumably inspired the plot of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail.