About the work
Alzira is an opera in a prologue and two acts by Giuseppe Verdi, with a libretto by Salvatore Cammarano after Voltaire's 1736 tragedy Alzire, ou les Américains. Verdi wrote it on commission for the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, where it premiered on 12 August 1845.
Plot
The story is set in 16th-century Peru under Spanish colonial rule. The Inca leader Zamoro and Alzira, daughter of the Inca chief Ataliba, are in love, but the Spanish governor's son Gusmano forces Alzira to marry him. When Zamoro stabs Gusmano at the wedding, the dying Gusmano forgives the couple.
Cultural significance
Despite Verdi's rising fame at the time, Alzira met a lukewarm reception in Naples and fared poorly in Rome and Milan, and it remains one of his least performed works; a German premiere did not take place until 1998, in Passau.