Arioso of Iolanta (Iolanta)

Iolanta was Tchaikovsky's last opera, composed in 1891 on a commission that paired it with The Nutcracker; the two were first performed together at the Mariinsky Theatre on 18 December 1892. Modest Tchaikovsky's libretto comes from Henrik Hertz's Danish play Kong Renés Datter, about a blind princess kept from knowing that she cannot see. The single act moves from an enclosed garden, scored in dark wind colours with the violins silent at the start, to a final hymn to light.