The praise received by Catalani's "La falce", a one-act opera written while he was a student at the Milan Conservatory, led to Giovannina Lucca offering him a contract for more operas. Lucca ran the music publishing house Casa Musicale Lucca that had acquired the rights to publish Wagner's works in Italy. "Elda", his first opera for Lucca premiered to critical success in 1880, followed by "Dejanice" in 1883 and "Edmea" in 1886. Neither of them had the critical success of "Elda", but "Edmea" went on to be performed both in Italy and internationally. This prompted Lucca to commission a fourth opera from Catalani. Instead of finding a new libretto, he decided on a complete reworking of "Elda" which had based on the Lorelei myth. Carlo D'Ormeville's original libretto for "Elda" was primarily re-worked by Angelo Zanardini who had written the libretto for "Dejanice", but the new "Loreley" libretto also had input Giuseppe Giacosa, Luigi Illica, and the music critic and impresario . "Loreley" kept the essential story of "Elda" but moved the setting back from the Baltic Sea to the Rhine River of the original myth.