Portrait of the theatre impresario Bartolomeo Merelli (1793-1879)

The year is 1842. After the failure of King For A Day, the impresario Merelli
consented nevertheless to the staging of a new opera by the young Verdi.
It’s a score with biblical theme on a libretto by Temistocle Solera, and called: Nabucodonosor,
quickly abbreviated to Nabucco.
Merelli took all precautions to ensure that another failure had minimum repercussions on his business. The scenery was
recycled from previous productions and above all that the opera was the last to be performed during Carnival and Lent. 
Therefore, strategically, the least important.
However, the opera was an immediate, extraordinary and unquestioned success, so much so that it came to imbued with
a special significance (linked to the Risorgimento) that the most recent critical thinking says is completely false.
Revived for the following season, the opera saw huge success in Vienna and then on the most important stages of Europe.