Zarya (opera)

Zarya svobody (Russian Заря свободы, German Morgenröte der Freiheit, English The Dawn of Freedom), is an opera in four acts composed between 1873 and 1877 by Ella Adayevskaya (the pseudonym adopted by the composer Elizaveta von Schultz).

A manuscript piano score bears the title, in German, Die Morgenröte der Freiheit.

Olga is encouraged to marry the wicked Nyrkoff, and eventually agrees to do so if he will arrange Pierre's freedom.

The opera ends with a prophetic chorus of peasants praising Alexander II's 1861 abolition of serfdom.

On 23 March 1886, the overture and chorus, (the latter arranged for orchestra) were played at a concert at the University of Dorpat (now Tartu, Estonia).