In 1837, the great Austrian Ballerina Fanny Elssler made her debut at the Paris Opéra in Aumer's production of La Fille mal gardée. As was the custom of the time, a ballerina would commission new Pas and variations to be interpolated into already existing ballets for their own performances. Making use of the extensive archives in the Paris Opéra's library, the ballerina selected her favourite airs from Donizetti's extremely popular score for the opera L'elisir d'amore. The library's copyist Aimé-Ambroise-Simon Leborne assembled and orchestrated the music for her.