"Nabucco" is the opera that established Verdi's reputation.
The opera follows the misfortune of the Jews as they are assaulted and conquered at their homeland by the Babylonians. But the opera itself has a deeper meaning than its story, and a tremendous political importance as it becomes an example of how music can unify people and shape the political and social developments of a country. Verdi's opera "Nabucco" provided the soundtrack to the struggle for Italian unification, which finally took place in 1861. Italy was until then a cluster of geopolitically contiguous kingdoms, with language being the only uniting common element. So when people in Italy were singing the "Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves" and cried "Viva Verdi", this music actually became the medium through which revolution broke out in Milan in 1848.
Therefore, "Nabucco" inevitably captures our imagination which travels back to Italy in the troubled years of the 19th century, when Italians were fighting for the birth of their new nation.