[Short] Va Pensiero from "Nabucco" (Excerpt) - Giuseppe Verdi
"Oh my country so beautiful and lost! Oh so dear yet unhappy!"
The prototype and best known of Verdi’s choruses remains, “Va, pensiero sull’ali dorate” (“Go, thoughts, on golden wings…”) from the opera Nabucco. It corresponds to the opening of Psalm 137, “By the waters of the Babylon we sat and wept,” as the captive Israelites remember their homeland. Nabucco was Verdi’s third opera and became a sensation throughout Italy. The libretto by Temistocle Solera is a Biblical where the title character is the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. He conquers the Hebrews in Act 1, but struck with insanity, finally converts to his enemy’s faith.
At the La Scala premiere of the opera on March 9, 1842, this powerful chorus of the Hebrew slaves struck such a resonant chord - particularly at a time when Italians were struggling for freedom from foreign control - that, despite the conventional police prohibition of the time, it had to be repeated. By the time of Verdi’s death, “Va, pensiero” had become a kind of Italian national anthem, and the original message of hope for the Hebrew exiles soon spoke of salvation for all mankind.
Performed at "RESIST! Anthems of Struggle and Triumph" last Feb. 23, 2019.