As an opera fan, I listen to a great many pieces of music that I don’t necessarily know all the history behind. One of my favorites is “Va, pensiero” by Verdi. The piece is also known as “Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves”, wherein the Jewish exiles of Babylon mourn the loss of their homeland and their temple. It wasn’t until I arrived here in Germany that I learned that this piece has a specific, although possibly apocryphal, history here. Supposedly, whenever Nabucco was performed in East Germany, audiences would be so moved by “Va, pensiero”, they would rise to their feet and join the chorus. At first the Politburo was pleased, thinking this a rallying cry around their homeland of Soviet East Germany. Once they realized that the homeland the people were singing of was really the West, Nabucco was quickly stricken from the list of acceptable operas to be performed in the East. I have searched for confirmation of this tale and only found vague and unspecified references to it, but the story is still a compelling example of modern folklore. True or not, it depicts acts of defiance of a people divided that serve to crystallize the zeitgeist of a moment in history.
Va, pensiero
by Giuseppe Verdi
from the opera Nabucco (1842)
Va, pensiero, sull’ali dorate;
va, ti posa sui clivi, sui colli,
ove olezzano tepide e molli
l’aure dolci del suolo natal!
Del Giordano le rive saluta,
di Sionne le torri atterrate…
O, mia patria, sì bella e perduta!
O, membranza, sì cara e fatal!
Arpa d’or dei fatidici vati,
perché muta dal salice pendi?
Le memorie nel petto raccendi,
ci favella del tempo che fu!
O simile di Sòlima[11] ai fati
traggi un suono di crudo lamento,
o t’ispiri il Signore un concento
che ne infonda al patire virtù.[12]
[English translation]
Fly, thought, on wings of gold;
go settle upon the slopes and the hills,
where, soft and mild, the sweet airs
of our native land smell fragrant!
Greet the banks of the Jordan
and Zion’s toppled towers…
Oh, my country, so beautiful and lost!
Oh, remembrance, so dear and so fatal!
Golden harp of the prophetic seers,
why dost thou hang mute upon the willow?
Rekindle our bosom’s memories,
and speak to us of times gone by!
Oh you akin to the fate of Jerusalem,
give forth a sound of crude lamentation,
oh may the Lord inspire you a harmony of voices
which may instill virtue to suffering.
References
Kreuzer, Gundula Katharina. Verdi and the Germans: From Unification to the Third Reich. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010. Print.
Forsyth, Frederick. The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue. London: Bantam, 2015. Print.