[1] At the instruction of Léon Pillet, the director of the Opéra, the opera was written as a vehicle for his mistress Rosine Stoltz (who had recently borne him a child).

A review in the Revue et gazette musicale sardonically regretted the Opéra's 'dearth of tenors', and noted that the composer was 'forced to do without a timbre of voice so essential to an opera.'

Hector Berlioz wrote that 'the orchestration is too grandiose, too pompous, too loud and even too slow for this kind of story.'

At the premiere, Stoltz particularly annoyed her rival Julie Dorus-Gras by conspicuously eating macaroni onstage during the latter's aria.

Mirobolante and Corvo try to prevent their marriage by asserting that Baptista is a minor; her birth certificate however shows that she is 21 that very day.