An opéra-comique in four acts, Zémire et Azor premiered on November 9, 1771, at court in Fontainebleau. The first public performance was on December 16, 1771, at the Comédie Italienne in Paris. Zémire et Azor was successful from the beginning and continued to be so for years, raising Grétry's fame to its highest level at home and abroad. As a result, the composer received a royal pension. This success, however, would not last. Several of his subsequent works were failures, and the arrival in Paris of Gluck and Piccini did not help matters.

On the title page of the first edition of Zémire et Azor (1772), the opera is described as a Comédie-Ballet with a dedication to Madame La Comtesse. The designation reflects the folklike nature of some of the arias and the presence, as was normal in French opera, of a ballet performed by Azor's servant in Act II to attract Zémire.

For Grétry's opera, Jean-François Marmontel (1723 - 1798) developed an "oriental adaptation" of Jeanne Marie Le Prince de Beaumont's La belle et la bête, published around 1750 and itself probably inspired by Neville de Chaussée's Amour pour amour (1742). Chaussée's play inspired Marmontel's Middle Eastern setting and character names, and the magical transformation of the beast at the end is derived from Favart and Duni's opera, La fée Urgèle of 1765. The result is an effective combination of classical opera, comedy, tragedy, and exoticism, with clearly drawn characters.

After the first public performance, the Mercure de France described Grétry's music for Zémire et Azor as "pleasant, always appropriate." Innovation begins in the overture, a three-part structure depicting the storm that destroys Sander's ship. The opening Allegro is in sonata form and is followed by a larghetto section. When the closing Allegro, depicting the storm, begins, so does the action on the stage, as Sander and Ali take shelter in Azor's deserted castle. Grétry develops the exotic, Middle Eastern flavor through ornamentation in highly embellished vocal and instrumental cadenzas, often employing harmonic minor scales. In this way, he could maintain European harmony and structure and still convey a sense of his location.

It was Grétry's primary concern that the music should suit the text and characters. Thus, the personalities in the opera are reflected in the music. Ali's arias are comic and very similar to one another, conveying the simplicity of his character. Zémire's solos, however, are greatly contrasted, varying in complexity and intensity as her emotions and predicaments change. Grétry's emphasis on the individual is clear in the predominance of arias over duets, trios, and other ensembles. One of these ensembles, however, is exemplary: In the famous "picture trio" of Act III, Sander and his daughters are perfectly unified in their sentiment and expression, conveyed through simple musical vocabulary. The lack of differentiation between characters in this number is perfectly suited to the story, for at that moment the three of them are mourning Zémire, who has left them to sacrifice herself at Azor's palace.

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