Operas set in Mesopotamia

Nabucco (; short for Nabucodonosor , i.e. "Nebuchadnezzar") is an Italian-language opera in four acts composed in 1841 by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera. The libretto is based on the biblical books of 2 Kings, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Daniel, and on the 1836 play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornu. However, Antonio Cortese's ballet adaptation of the play (with its necessary simplifications), given at La Scala in 1836, was a more important source for Solera than the play itself. Under its original name of Nabucodonosor, the opera was first performed at

opera by Gioachino Rossini

opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer

thumb|Title page of the libretto (1763) Zanaida is a three-act opera seria with music by Johann Christian Bach and libretto based on Metastasio's Siface, re di Numidia by Giovanni Gualberto Bottarelli who relocated the action from North Africa to Persia. It debuted at the His Majesty's Theatre, London, on 7 May 1763.