Mercè, dilette amiche (Siciliana d'Elena) (I vespri siciliani)

Verdi accepted a commission from the Paris Opéra for the Exposition Universelle of 1855 and found himself working from a libretto Eugène Scribe had largely recycled from Le duc d'Albe, written years earlier for another composer. Rehearsals were long and the collaboration difficult; the premiere on 13 June 1855 nonetheless held the stage for more than fifty performances. The five-act French form, with its obligatory ballet and crowd tableaux, pushed Verdi into a broader manner. Italian censors objected to a plot about insurrection against foreign rule, and the work circulated for decades under altered titles and settings.