![]() ![]() For this reason, he has spread the rumor that Nabucco has died in the battle. In the Second Act, set in the royal palace in Babylon, the Assyrian High Priest of Bel is organizing a plot to overthrow the king and replace him with his daughter, Abigaille. With blasphemous arrogance, Nabucco orders the Temple to be looted and burned, and the Israelites forcibly deported to Babylon. He may sound conceited or even megalomaniac, but it is compatible with his social role of king. No signs or symptoms of mental illness can be evidenced. During his first appearance (Act One, scene 7), when Nabucco enters the Temple, he appears to be awake, aware, alert and oriented in both space and time. The opera is initially set in the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem: Nabucco, King of Babylon, has attacked the Israelites with his hordes and is desecrating the city. Furthermore, the representation of Nabucco's mental illness in the opera could have also been influenced by direct experiences of the Italian composer himself, who seems to have suffered from recurrent depressive episodes in that period, and for the rest of his life. Psychic signs and symptoms attributed to Nabucco in Verdi's opera could have been influenced by a better knowledge of neuropsychiatric diseases in the nineteenth century. Indeed, the book of Daniel depicted King Nebuchadnezzar losing his mental sanity and living in the wild like an animal for a long period of time (7 years). ![]() This episode of temporary insanity - which Nabucco suffers from in the opera - seems to be different from the original biblical description. Such a condition appears to be transitory, since Nabucco recovers his senses in the fourth act. This causes the conqueror to faint and subsequently be in a state of altered mental functions. When, at the end of Act Two, Nabucco declares not to be king anymore but a divinity, he is suddenly struck on the head by a bolt of lightning, seemingly thrown by God. The plot, divided in 4 acts, develops around the conquest of Jerusalem by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II - named as Nabucco in the opera - and the attempt of his daughter Abigaille to usurp the throne. Its libretto, based on the events described in the Bible Books of Daniel and Jeremiah, was written by Temistocle Solera (1815-1878), and inspired by the drama “Nabuchodonosor” (1836) by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornue. In addition to its political contents, Nabucco, composed in 1841 and premiered at the Teatro La Scala in Milan in the following year, may provide us with some information on the state of knowledge on neuropsychiatric diseases in the first part of the nineteenth century. It was, therefore, forbidden by the Austrian authorities ruling northern Italy at the time, to prevent public protests and riots. ![]() The famous “Va, pensiero” chorus sung in Act Three by the Hebrew slaves was indeed looked upon as a national anthem by the Italians. One of the most renowned operas from those years is “Nabucco” by Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), considered by several scholars to be a symbol of the Italian Risorgimento the political and social movement for the unification of Italy into a single state. Romantic operas, as an expression of the nineteenth century, can provide relevant information on the medical knowledge during that period, especially in the field of neuroscience. ![]()
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