While the Paris Opera was more famous for its requirement of a ballet during any opera, Covent Garden, too, followed this practice during the latter years of the nineteenth century, though as often as not it had one performed after the main work rather than insisting that it somehow be incorporated into the opera's plot. This work was commissioned for performance after Bellini's La Sonnambula, during the time when Sullivan was still associated with Covent Garden rather than London's operetta houses.

As with most of his early works, the audience and critics responded enthusiastically and Sullivan adapted and shortened it for later concert performances. When the original manuscript was lost, this was fortunate, as the adaptation and Sullivan's notes on the pieces that he omitted allowed for the original work to be credibly reconstructed.

The tone is unabashedly lyrical and sentimental, an ideal match for the opening opera, with an easy grace and lightness of touch. Even the music for the dance of the nymphs and satyrs suggests that the dancers refresh themselves with Victorian tea rather than Bacchanal wine. At times, it even approaches blandness, though Sullivan's musical facility keeps it from toppling into tediousness. (Compare, for example, the storm music to Rossini's in The Barber of Seville.)

The music is full of hints of the later Sullivan's stage works. For example, the Prelude suggests the fairy music from Iolanthe (not surprising, since this is another story of a fairy queen who falls in love with a mortal).

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