Attila (opera)

Attila
Opera by Giuseppe Verdi
Last scene, as performed in London in 1848
LibrettistTemistocle Solera and Francesco Maria Piave
LanguageItalian
Based onZacharias Werner's 1809 play Attila, König der Hunnen (Attila, King of the Huns)
Premiere
17 March 1846 (1846-03-17)

Attila is an opera in a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the 1809 play Attila, König der Hunnen (Attila, King of the Huns) by Zacharias Werner. The opera received its first performance at La Fenice in Venice on 17 March 1846.

Ezio's act 2 aria of heroic resolution "È gettata la mia sorte" (My lot is cast, I am prepared for any warfare) is a fine example of a characteristic Verdian genre, and it achieved fame in its own time with audiences in the context of the adoption of a liberal constitution by Ferdinand II.[1] Other contemporary comment praised the work as suitable for the "political education of the people", while, in contrast, others criticised the opera as "Teutonic" in nature.[1]

  1. ^ a b Stamatov, Peter, "Interpretive Activism and the Political Uses of Verdi's Operas in the 1840s" (June 2002). American Sociological Review, 67 (3): pp. 345–366.