At first glance, Darius Milhaud appears to have been the darling of inter-war French patrons. He received aristocratic commissions from the Princesse de Polignac, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, and Ida Rubinstein; and ballet commissions from Sergei Diaghilev, Rolf de Maré, Étienne de Beaumont, Ida Rubinstein, and Edward James. But commissions alone do not make a career. For all his apparent success, Milhaud struggled to win the consecration of one patron in particular: Jacques Rouché, the powerful administrator of the Paris Opéra.

In his autobiography, Milhaud reflected on the humiliation of a 1929 performance at the Opéra of a brief polka written for the collective ballet L’éventail de Jeanne. The composer complained that he would have preferred to see one of “so many lyrical works that had never been performed at the Opéra” on the stage instead of an inconsequential piece “written one morning in May, in Vienna.” Milhaud alluded to a frustrating streak: between 1913 and 1929 he composed eleven operas but saw only two premiered in France, both at the Opéra-Comique; four were staged outside of France, and five more awaited their premieres. Every work submitted to Rouché had been rejected.

Milhaud's failure to secure performances of his music at the Opéra – the most prestigious musical venue in France – reflected a broader critical failure that dogged him through the 1920s. Even as he accrued notoriety and professional opportunities, won commissions from patrons and impresarios, traveled and performed his music on four continents, he struggled to earn the respect he felt he deserved. His music was still dismissed by influential critics and composers, many of whom served on prize-giving or advisory committees. And because he had failed to win the coveted Prix de Rome, the official accolade par excellence for aspiring composers, he was at a distinct disadvantage when it came to realizing his ambition of seeing one of his lyrical works performed at the Paris Opéra. In short, Milhaud felt spurned by the “official” milieu of French music.

It is all the more remarkable, then, that a circuitous career path enabled Milhaud to overcome institutional, cultural, and aesthetic prejudices and achieve official recognition in France. His path took him through Vienna, where he forged a powerful partnership with the publishing firm Universal Edition.