Attila

with Italian and English surtitles
La Fenice staging

The second opera that Giuseppe Verdi composed for La Fenice, Attila, is probably the composer’s most Venetian opera; not only did it debut in Venice in 1846, but it also narrates the arrival of the refugees from Aquileia on the island of Rivo Alto, which was the foundation of the first nucleus of a settlement that was to become Venice. Based on the tragedy, Attila, König der Hunnen by Zacharias Werner, its ambitious subject made it ideal for a different approach to dramaturgy. Owing to an unsuited cast its Venetian debut was not particularly successful but the opera remained in the programme in the most prestigious opera houses for five years after the Venetian première of Rigoletto