As in the original version of the play by Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis, the morally strongest character in the play is not Agamemnon, a pusillanimous leader, but Iphigénie, driven by duty to father and country to accept the will of the gods.
Work, on foundations already constructed by Moreau, began in May 1779, paid for by Monsieur, and by 16 February 1782, the players of the Comédie Française, who had objected to the project from the start, were installed in the new theatre, which was inaugurated by Marie-Antoinette, 9 April 1782, with a performance of Racine's Iphigénie.
In 1889 Richard Strauss made a new arrangement of the work for the publisher Adolph Fürstner, which was later staged in Weimar at the Hoftheater on 9 June 1900, under the Goethe-inspired title of Iphigenie auf Tauris.