In 1787, the writer Valadier offered Méhul one of his libretti, "Cora", which had been rejected by Gluck in 1785. The Académie royale de musique (the Paris Opéra) put Méhul's work, under the title "Alonzo et Cora", into rehearsal in June 1789. However, the rehearsals were abandoned on 8 August, probably because the Opéra had been suffering severe financial difficulties throughout the 1780s, and the opera was not premiered until 1791. In the meantime, Méhul found an ideal collaborator in the librettist François-Benoît Hoffman, who provided the words to the first of Méhul's operas to be performed, "Euphrosine". Its premiere in 1790 was an immense success and marked the composer out as a new talent. It was also the start of his long relationship with the Comédie Italienne theatre (soon to be renamed the Opéra-Comique).