"As with Rosy Steps the Morn"
As with rosy steps the morn,
Advancing, drives the shades of night,
So from virtuous toil well-borne,
Raise Thou our hopes of endless light.
Triumphant saviour, Lord of day,
Thou art the life, the light, the way!
Theodora by Georg Friedrich Handel
The opera is set in Antioch in the 4th century.
Antioch’s governor, Valens, orders all the city’s citizens to make sacrifices to the Roman gods or be punished. Didymus, a Roman soldier who is Christian, asks that those who abstain through conscience be spared. Valens will not countenance this, and the officer tasked with enforcing the decree, Septimus, cannot disobey his orders. The city’s Christians affirm their faith and so are arrested.
Theodora, a Christian princess, is condemned to a life of prostitution and taken to prison. Didymus visits her cell and persuades her to escape, disguised in his uniform. As a result, Didymus is condemned to death. Theodora surrenders herself, asking that she be executed instead of Didymus, who, however, is adamant he will die in her place. Septimus pleads for clemency for them both, but Valens is unmoved and condemns them both to death. They sing together of the immortality they find in their faith.