Nabucco, Giuseppe Verdi's third opera, premieres at…

Nabucco, Giuseppe Verdi's third opera, premieres at La Scala in Milan on March 9, 1842; its success establishes Verdi as one of Italy's foremost operatic composers.

At its revival in La Scala for the 1842 autumn season it will be given an unprecedented (and later unequaled) total of fifty-seven performances; within three years it will have reached (among other venues) Vienna, Lisbon, Barcelona, Berlin, Paris and Hamburg; in 1848 it will be heard in New York, in 1850 in Buenos Aires.

Nabucco will underpin Verdi's success until his retirement from the theater, twenty-nine operas (including some revised and updated versions) later.

Short for Nabucodonosor, the Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera is based on biblical books of Jeremiah and Daniel and the 1836 play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornu, although Antonio Cortese's ballet adaptation of the play (with its necessary simplifications), given at La Scala in 1836, was a more important source for Solera than the play itself.

It follows the plight of the Jews as they are assaulted, conquered and subsequently exiled from their homeland by the Babylonian King Nabucco (in English, Nebuchadnezzar II).

The historical events are used as background for a romantic and political plot.

The best-known number from the opera is the "Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves", "Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate" / "Fly, thought, on golden wings", a chorus that is regularly given an encore in many opera houses when performed today.