About the work
Opera in a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi after Zacharias Werner's drama 'Attila, King of the Huns' (1808), first performed on 17 March 1846 at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. The libretto is by Temistocle Solera, with the final act completed by Francesco Maria Piave after Solera left for Madrid.
Plot
The Hun king Attila conquers the northern Italian city of Aquileia. Odabella, daughter of a prince he has killed, wins his trust while planning to strike him down like the biblical Judith. Amid political intrigue involving the Roman general Ezio and Odabella's plan for revenge, the opera builds toward Attila's murder at her hand.
Cultural significance
Contemporary audiences on the eve of the 1848 revolutions read the opera's patriotic undertones as a call against Habsburg foreign rule: the line 'Resti l'Italia a me' ('Leave Italy to me') in the duet between Ezio and Attila drew demonstrative applause in Venice and later in Rome. Attila is among the operas that earned Verdi his reputation as a musical voice of the Risorgimento.