Rossini adapted his own Italian opera of 1820, Maometto, for the Parisian stage under the title of Le Siège de Corinthe. As Rossini’s original work had already absorbed distinctive French characteristics such as heroic arias, and characterisation through orchestral colour, the newly composed music for the reworking makes for a powerful and compelling operatic tour de force.

With its historical subject matter and tragic ending, Le Siège de Corinthe anticipates the advent of grand opera. It is an important work, showing how Rossini both absorbed and continued to propagate the demands of the new French opera movement of the first third of the nineteenth century which required a strong sense of historic narrative and tragedy.