[6] Stylistically in the line of the tragédie lyrique of Rameau, Gluck or Berlioz, Magnard bases each act around a love duet for the two principal characters,[3] and ends all three quietly.

After the Dreyfus affair, Magnard, a dreyfusard, gives a positive depiction of the Jewish queen forced out by the Roman populace, and where the leaders of Rome fail to stand up for justice.

He describes the opera as a "morality play about the symmetry between the happiness of intimacy and love and the pursuit of truth and justice in the public sphere", with the title character Bérénice as a post-1906 Dreyfus figure, while Titus can be seen as France.

[8] Magnard had resigned his commission in 1899 in disgust at the Dreyfus affair, composing a "Hymne à la Justice", first performed in 1903, as an expression of his strong feelings on the matter.

Mucien, a senior Praetorian guard, warns him off a further meeting with Bérénice but the emperor does come to the queen's boat before she sheds her locks and quietly departs.