Operas by Modest Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov, Khovanshchina, the Fair at Sorochyntsi, Zhenitba, Mlada, Salammb

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Boris Godunov, Khovanshchina, the Fair at Sorochyntsi, Zhenitba, Mlada, Salammb, Boris Godunov Discography. Excerpt: Operas by Modest Mussorgsky Boris Godunov (Russian:, original orthography, Bors Godunv ) is an opera by Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881). The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg, Russia . It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece Its subject is the historical Russian ruler Boris Godunov, who reigned as Tsar during the early phase of the Russian political upheaval that occurred between 1598 and 1613. The libretto was written by the composer, and is based on the "dramatic chronicle" Boris Godunov by Alexander Pushkin, and on Nikolay Karamzin 's History of the Russian State . Boris Godunov, among major operas, shares with Giuseppe Verdi 's Don Carlos (1867) the distinction of having the most complex creative history and the greatest wealth of alternative material. The composer created two versions the Original Version of 1869, which was rejected for production by the Imperial Theatres, and the Revised Version of 1872, which received its first performance in 1874 in Saint Petersburg. These versions constitute two distinct ideological conceptions, not two variations of a single plan. Boris Godunov has seldom been performed in either of the two forms left by the composer, frequently being subjected to cuts, recomposition, re-orchestration, conflation of the original and revised versions, or translation into another language. Several composers, chief among them Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Dmitri Shostakovich, have created new editions of the opera to "correct" perceived technical weaknesses in the composer's original scores. Although these versions held the stage for decades, Mussorgsky's individual harmoni...