Calzabigi originally wrote the libretto of Les Danaïdes for Christoph Willibald Gluck, but the aged composer, who had just experienced a stroke,[2] was unable to meet the Opéra's schedule and so asked Salieri to take it over.

Emperor Joseph II assured that Salieri wrote the music "almost under the dictée of Gluck," in a letter (dated 31 March 1783) to Count Mercy-Argenteau, the Austrian ambassador in Paris.

Stylistically, Salieri combined the direct simplicity of Gluck's innovations with the concern for melody of Italian composers, though the frequent use of chorus owes much to French traditions, as did the munificent staging, which much impressed Berlioz.

The fine soprano role, the tremendously grim finale, and the brevity of Les Danaïdes (ten minutes under two hours) have ensured that the opera has made it onto CD.

It must have been a revival of this edition (or of a similar one) that delighted, some years later, shortly after his arrival in Paris, the young Berlioz, who would later reveal that he had been, at the same time, exceptionally "excited and disturbed" by Spontini's additions.