Saint-Saëns was drawn to the story because it gave him the opportunity to compose a grand duet against a rising storm. He knew Rameau's take on the story from Voltaire's libretto for an opera on the subject (now lost), but Rameau's storm was a metaphor for the wrath of God. Rossini's "Otello" was nearer to what Saint-Saëns had in mind. He wrote, "I imagined a storm that would no longer be an hors-d'œuvre (a tidbit eaten before a meal) but adhere to the action and become one with it."