It is a tale of late night fête galante involving aristocrats and a commedia dell'arte troupe where jealousy, desire, and multiple masquerades end in the death of one of the characters.

[1][2] After finishing her first volume of memoirs, Impressions That Remained, in 1919 she approached her friend Maurice Baring for permission to set his short story "Fête Galante" as an opera, hoping that it would tempt her back into composing.

[3] The libretto was written by Smyth and the war poet Edward Shanks and closely follows Baring's story of a late night fête galante in which the Pierrot is hanged by a jealous king.

Its title and themes of aristocratic open-air festivity, masquerade and commedia dell'arte harked back to the operas of Rameau and Lully but were also echoed in the neoclassical works of Smyth's contemporaries Debussy, Busoni, and Stravinsky.

[4] Smyth composed Fête Galante in a neoclassical style, incorporating baroque dances and a madrigal set to a poem by John Donne.