Category
page 1Operas set in Mesopotamia

Nabucco
Nabucco (; short for Nabucodonosor , i.e. "Nebuchadnezzar") is an Italian-language opera in four acts composed in 1841 by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera. The libretto is based on the biblical books of 2 Kings, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Daniel, and on the 1836 play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornu. However, Antonio Cortese's ballet adaptation of the play (with its necessary simplifications), given at La Scala in 1836, was a more important source for Solera than the play itself. Under its original name of Nabucodonosor, the opera was first performed at
Adina
opera by Gioachino Rossini
Semiramide riconosciuta
opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer
Zanaida
thumb|Title page of the libretto (1763)
Zanaida is a three-act opera seria with music by Johann Christian Bach and libretto based on Metastasio's Siface, re di Numidia by Giovanni Gualberto Bottarelli who relocated the action from North Africa to Persia. It debuted at the His Majesty's Theatre, London, on 7 May 1763.