Verdi the Revolutionary

In the early 19th century, there was no such thing as a single Italy. Instead, the peninsula was divided into numerous independent city states, and regions controlled by foreign empires–the Austrian Empire foremost among them. It was a powder keg awaiting the spark of Romantic Period patriotism, and when that spark did come, the fire was tended by the likes of Garibaldi, Mazzini, Cavour, and even Verdi.

Verdi was a patriot through and through. Although he never picked up a rifle, and he had to keep his sentiments more or less subtle to escape Austrian censors, Italian revolutionaries easily related to themes of national unity, and of overthrowing the oppressive yoke, with which his operas rang. Nowhere is this more prominent than in his now-immortal Nabucco. Premiered in 1842, it tells of the Jews’ exile into Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar. Especially poignant is the chorus, Va, pensiero, or the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves. “O my homeland, so lovely and lost!/O memories so dear and yet so deadly!...Mindful of the fate of Solomon's temple,/Cry out with raw lamentation,/or else may the Lord strengthen you/to bear these sufferings!” These words deeply resonated with Italian revolutionaries seeking to drive the Austrians out of their land, such that in the 1850s, the chorus became the unofficial anthem of the Risorgimento.

Despite its popularity, Nabucco was not intentionally written as a revolutionary piece. La battaglia di Legnano, on the other hand, was. Composed at the behest of librettist Salvatore Cammarano, the work premiered in 1849 in the short-lived Roman Republic, which meant it could be performed free of censorship. It was met with great enthusiasm, and the bare-faced patriotism of its choruses–“Viva Italia! Sacro un patto,” and “Italia risorge vestita di Gloria,” among others–spurred the crowds into a frenzy. So blatant was La battaglia’s pro-RIsorgimento bent that, following the Italian victories in Parma in 1859, it was re-titled La disfatta degli Austriaci–The defeat of the Austrians.

That same year, Verdi’s service to the Risorgimento suddenly expanded far beyond the stage. He was elected to the regional assembly of Parma, and in Naples, a new patriotic cry was heard: “Viva Verdi,” shouted the revolutionaries–that is to say, “Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia,” “Long live Victor Emmanuel II, King of Italy.”

The regional assembly was only the beginning of Verdi’s political career. At the birth of a united Italy in 1861, he was convinced by its first prime minister, Camillo Cavour, to become a member of parliament, and then later became a lifetime senator. 

Public life held little appeal to the by-then aged Verdi, though, and he spent most of his time at his farming estate in Piacenza. Even so, the public never forgot his music that stoked the flames of Italian unification. At his funeral procession in 1901, Va, pensiero rang out, not just from the 820-strong chorus conducted by Arturo Toscanini, but also from the thousands of mourners who bade the Risorgimento’s composer a final farewell.