Its libretto was written by Martin Opitz (which survives) and its music was composed by Heinrich Schütz (which is lost).

It has traditionally been regarded as the first German opera, though it has also been proposed more recently that it was in fact a spoken drama with inserted song and ballet numbers.

In 1625 and 1626 Opitz visited the Dresden court, to work with Schütz on a Sing-Comoedie based on the model of Jacopo Peri's Dafne.

[2] Opitz and Schütz' were probably attracted by religious content of the work, rather than the purely pagan mythology of Dafne or Euridice.

[5] Although long unquestioned as "the first German opera"[citation needed] the performance started no notable tradition in Germany, and Wolfram Steude (1991) made the controversial proposal that Dafne was in fact a spoken drama with inserted song and ballet numbers.