Italian unification (Italian: Unificazione italiana), also known as Risorgimento ([risordʒiˈmento], meaning the Resurgence or renaissance or rebirth or revival), was the political and social movement that consolidated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of the Kingdom of Italy in the 19th century. Despite a lack of consensus on the exact dates for the beginning and end of this period, many scholars agree that the process began in 1815 with the Congress of Vienna and the end of Napoleonic rule, and was completed in 1871 when Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy. Some of the terre irredente did not, however, join the Kingdom of Italy until after World War I with the Treaty of Saint-Germain. Some nationalists see the 3 November 1918 Armistice of Villa Giusti as the completion of unification.
Risorgimento! is an opera in one act by Lorenzo Ferrero set to an Italian-language libretto by Dario Oliveri, based on a scenario by the composer. It was completed in 2010 and first performed at the Teatro Comunale Modena on 26 March 2011.
The opera was commissioned by the Teatro Comunale di Bologna for the 150th anniversary of the Italian unification which was commemorated in 2011, and had there an initial run of six performances between April 5 and 16, coupled with Luigi Dallapiccola's Il prigioniero. The work mixes the story of one of the most well-known operas by Giuseppe Verdi, Nabucco, with social and cultural aspects of the Risorgimento, through a plot in which one is the reflection of the other. The characters of the opera – says the composer – engage in a debate not just about the Risorgimento but also about the opera itself and its chances of success. They are, at least in part, the same as the interpreters of that first Nabucco (then titled Nabucodonosor) staged at La Scala on 9 March 1842.