• It is one of his longest works, at a mere 100 minutes; but then, Roussel was a remarkably succinct composer.
• It is the piece most strongly influenced by his several visits to India.
• It marked an abrupt change of style, away from typically French manners and civility and toward classical forms, rhythmic power, powerful emotions and even, occasionally, a very un-Gallic ferocity.

Padmavati was written to a commission from Jacques Rouche, who had also commissioned the great ballet Le festin de l'araignée in 1912. The opera retells a 13th Century Hindu tragedy, the site of which Roussel had visited during his 1909 visit to India with his bride.

Typically, Roussel did not follow the standard forms of opera; rather, he mixed his genres, as he was wont to do. For example, Aeneas, opus 54, is a very symphonic-sounding ballet cum oratorio; and La naissance de la lyre, opus 24, is either a "lyric tale", incidental music, an opera, or a ballet with words. For Padmavati, Roussel turned — also as he was wont to do — to classical forms. Namely, the opera-ballet format of Rameau — a series of dances and spectacles linked by a sung text in the which the unusual and marvelous generally played a substantial role.

Act I
The opera opens with Alauddin and his envoys coming to Ratan-Sen's court to discuss peace — or war. After dances of welcome by the Hindu palace dancers, Alauddin asks to see Padmavati, of whose beauty he has heard. When Ratan-Sen bids his wife to lower her veil, Alauddin seems overcome by her beauty and makes an excuse to leave.

Then Alauddin sends an ultimatum to Ratan-Sen: hand over the beautiful Padmavati, or the city of Chitoor will be sacked. Ratan-Sen refuses. The people of Chitoor lynch Alauddin's cruel messenger, who dies prophesying death for Ratan-Sen and Padmavati and the destruction of Chitoor.

In the final scene of the act, with calls to arms echoing in the distance, Padmavati sings a lament that she should, innocently, be the cause of disaster and prays that she die rather than be separated from Ratan-Sen.

Act II
In the Temple of the god Shiva, Padmavati awaits the return of her husband, who is leading his troops in a desperate sortie against the Moguls. The priests of Shiva tell her that a supreme sacrifice at dawn is necessary to save Chitoor, and that there must be more than one victim.

Ratan-Sen returns, wounded. His army has been routed; a truce is in place until dawn, the deadline to hand over Padmavati. He pictures the horrors that will befall the people of Chitoor.

And then Padmavati stabs her beloved husband — the first sacrificial victim — knowing that tradition dictates she commit suttee, or suicide on her husband's funeral pyre. The preparations for her sacrificial death are a solemn ritual that Padmavati handles with dignity and honor. As she is carried, with a final song of terror, to her immolation, Alauddin bursts through the Temple door — too late.

Roussel's music for the dances, choruses and pantomimes stand almost alone in Western music for the authenticity of its orientalism. He makes use of Indian scales, or ragas, and his melodies are often ornamented with the melismas typical of oriental music; but his music never gives the impression of being a pastiche or imitation of the Indian original. [Martin Cooper]

This is considered one of the most important lyrical-dramatic works of the modern French school. [International Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians]

It is very nearly the finest and most unusual unknown French opera ever written. [Jim Svejda]

Brilliant and colorful, though dense in parts, the score alternates moments of savage force and great tenderness.... Roussel was not a theatrical composer, and there is little if any dramatic intensity in this work. [Enzo Valenti Ferro]

Roussel performs the difficult feat of presenting this world, remote not only in time and place, but also in its assumptions and attitudes, with sincerity and conviction. [Basil Deane]

The most authentic oriental music drama to have been written by a Western musician. [Laurence Davies]

The most evocative of all operas on Indian subjects. [Lionel Salter]

The most remarkable characteristic of Padmavati... is its rhythmic variety and vitality.... The rhythms no longer follow the slow, subtle, sensual patterns typical of Debussy nor the more obvious, four-square gait of d'Indy. [Martin Cooper]

Unfortunately, Padmavati isn't an opera, isn't a ballet, nor an opera-ballet; it is, simply, unique. [Hugh MacDonald]

In spite of its high reputation among musicians, Padmavati, which needs a large symphony and considerable outlay, has had few stagings.... The score must be classed among the major achievements of French opera in the present century. [Ronald Crichton]

The noble utterances of Padmavati herself are worthy, it seems to me, to stand beside those of Berlioz's Dido.... The musical splendours of the choral funeral procession bring to a most impressive end an opera whose almost complete neglect ever since it was written would be unbelievable even in France were it not for such overwhelming precedent as Berlioz's Troyens. [The Earl of Harewood]