Semiramide was Meyerbeer's second Italian opera, premiered in December of 1818. The original libretto was by Pietro Metastasio, an opera seria librettist of the eighteenth century. Metastasio's librettos were set dozens of times by composers over the centuries. He was considered one of the finest poets of his time, but wrote in the stilted style of the opera seria, which demanded conformity to certain conventions of plot, content, and style. The nineteenth-century audiences were just as particular in their demands as those of the eighteenth were; therefore the original libretto had to go through several modifications in order to meet the dramaturgical requirements of the later, more romantic, age. Gaetano Rossi probably did the adaptations of the libretto for Meyerbeer. In some sections, the original text was not altered, but the use of the text for dramatic purposes was. For instance, in Act I, a choral number from Act II of the original libretto is transformed into a canzonetta with variations for Semiramide. It is used during the banquet scene, and turned into an extended dramatic piece that still makes use of the chorus, but as an active part of the drama.

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