About the work
La battaglia di Legnano is a four-act opera by Giuseppe Verdi, with a libretto by Salvatore Cammarano based on Joseph Méry's play La bataille de Toulouse (1828), relocated to the year 1176. It premiered on 27 January 1849 at the Teatro Argentina in Rome, days before the proclamation of the Roman Republic.
Plot
Set during the Lombard League's war against Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, the opera follows the Veronese warrior Arrigo, his former fiancée Lida — now married to his friend Rolando — and Barbarossa himself. A conflict of love, jealousy and patriotic duty culminates in the Battle of Legnano, where Arrigo dies for Italy.
Cultural significance
The opera is regarded as Verdi's most direct contribution to the Italian unification movement; the premiere audience demanded the entire third act be repeated. After the fall of the Roman Republic, censors forced the plot to be rewritten under the title L'assedio di Arlem, and only with the founding of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 could the opera again be performed in its original form.