Mentre gonfiarsi l'anima (Attila, Atto I) (Attila)

Verdi wrote Attila for La Fenice in Venice during the years he later called his time in the galleys, and was seriously ill through much of the work; Temistocle Solera abandoned the libretto midway, leaving Francesco Maria Piave to finish it from Zacharias Werner's German play. The premiere on 17 March 1846 drew its political charge from a single line — you may have the universe, but leave Italy to me — which Venetian audiences applied to Austrian rule. The score is compact and blunt, and treats the bass in the title role less as a barbarian than as a man undone by dreams.