Nabucco (; short for
Nabucodonosor ~, English
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 biblical stories from the
Book of Jeremiah and the
Book of Daniel and the 1836
play by
Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornue, although 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 La Scala in Milan on 9 March 1842.