The opera is based on the like-named play by Jean Richepin, who wrote the libretto, and is dedicated to La Comtesse de Mercy-Argenteau. It premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 22 February 1894, and played for four performances. It was revived in 1908 in a production by students at the Moscow Conservatory under the conductorship of Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, and a Russian edition of the piano-vocal score was printed under the title "У моря" ("U morja" = "By the Sea"). Nevertheless, despite the composer's own special fondness for this work, "Le Flibustier" seems never to have been performed again and never became part of the standard operatic repertoire.