Medée was the only work that Marc-Antoine Charpentier composed for Louis XIV's Académie Royale de Musique. It was well received--the king himself complimented Charpentier for it--and it is now considered the most important opera performed by the Académie in the decade following Lully's death.

The librettist, Thomas Corneille, was the brother of the well-known playwright Pierre Corneille. But Thomas was accomplished in his own right, authoring works in all the major genres of his day and gaining admission into the Académie Française in 1684. Although he produced some notable collaborations with Lully, Medée is widely thought to be his best work; some scholars count it among the finest tragédie lyrique librettos of the seventeenth century.