The terrible earthquake that destroyed Lisbon on 1 November 1755, changed forever Perez's output. The Ópera do Tejo was destroyed six months after opening and the court withdrew from the theatres. No operas were produced for the next seven years, and thereafter only in a less spectacular fashion. During the last 23 years of his life, Perez wrote just three new operas. Instead he composed a huge amount of church music, covering almost all the rituals and practices of the two main musical chapels of Lisbon, the Royal and the Seminário da Patriarcal. He never left Portugal, so that his international acclaim slowly declined. Still, Gerber noted that since 1766 Perez's compositions were known and in demand in Germany and that he was in 1790 'one of the most celebrated and beloved composers among the Italian masters ... one of the latest composers who maintained the rigour of counterpoint'. J. C. Krause named Hasse, Perez and Paisiello as satisfactory models. In 1774 Perez became by acclamation a member of the London Academy of Ancient Music, and had the only full-scale piece printed in his lifetime, the "Mattutino de' Morti" (his third set of the Office of the Dead), published there by Bremner. His music, especially the religious, was widely copied in Italy. During the last four years of his life Perez suffered from a chronic disease, eventually losing his sight, but continued to compose. In 1778 his pupil, now Queen Maria I of Portugal, made him a Knight of the Order of Christ; when he died in Lisbon, she ordered an elaborate funeral at the Crown's expense.