Opera · Russian & Slavic opera

Boris Godunov

27 January (8 February) 1874, Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg

Modest Mussorgsky · libretto by the composer, after Pushkin and Karamzin

Mussorgsky's only completed opera, and the great Russian historical music drama. A regent crowned tsar after the murder of the boy heir is destroyed by guilt and by a runaway monk who impersonates the dead child. The chorus — the Russian people, starving and fickle — is effectively the leading role, and the opera ends not with the tsar's death but with a holy fool weeping over Russia.

How to spot them

▸Russia, 1598–1605: a monastery cell, the Kremlin square, an inn on the Lithuanian border, Kromy Forest
▸Coronation bells built from two alternating dominant sevenths a tritone apart
▸A bass in the title role, made famous by Chaliapin, and a chronicler monk writing by candlelight
▸A hallucination scene with a ticking clock and a bleeding child
▸Exists in an 1869 version, an 1872 revision, and two Rimsky-Korsakov reorchestrations

Arias & moments — listen

Clanging bells over alternating chords a tritone apart, as a reluctant new tsar processes from the cathedral (1874)

The Coronation Scene, whose bell chords are among the most imitated sounds in Russian music

Recording: Mussorgsky · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

"Dostig ya vysshey vlasti" — a ruler confesses that supreme power has brought him no joy (1874)

The Act 2 monologue, 'I have attained supreme power'

Recording: Fédor Chaliapine (1873–1938) · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

A dying tsar names his son heir, then collapses: "I still am tsar!" (1874)

The Death Scene, with the tolling of the passing bell and a chorus of monks

Recording: Файлы третьих лиц · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

An old monk writes the last page of his chronicle by candlelight, and lets slip how the boy died (1874)

Pimen's scene in the Chudov Monastery, which sets the plot going

A drunken friar sings about the siege of Kazan while police hunt a fugitive in an inn (1874)

Varlaam's song, and Grigory's escape over the Lithuanian border

A holy fool, robbed of a kopeck by children, is left alone on stage weeping for Russia (1874)

The Yurodivy ends the Kromy Forest scene, and the 1872 version of the opera

Quick-fire facts

•The libretto is Mussorgsky's own, after Pushkin's 1825 play and Nikolai Karamzin's History of the Russian State.
•The Imperial Theatres rejected the 1869 version partly for having no significant female role; the 1872 revision added the 'Polish act' with Princess Marina Mniszech and the Kromy Forest scene.
•Rimsky-Korsakov reorchestrated and cut the opera in 1896 and again in 1908, and his version dominated the stage for decades; Shostakovich made another in 1940.
•The pretender is Grigory Otrepiev, a novice monk who claims to be the murdered Tsarevich Dmitry.
•Feodor Chaliapin made the title role his own, and Diaghilev's 1908 Paris production with Chaliapin launched the work in the West.
•Mussorgsky was one of 'The Five' — with Balakirev, Borodin, Cui and Rimsky-Korsakov — and died in 1881 at 42.
•His other major works are the unfinished Khovanshchina, Pictures at an Exhibition and Night on Bald Mountain.
•The boy tsarevich was killed at Uglich in 1591; whether the historical Boris ordered it is still disputed.

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Sources

Grove Music Online (Oxford Music Online) — Musorgsky, Modest Petrovich: Boris Godunov
Encyclopaedia Britannica — Boris Godunov: opera by Mussorgsky
Richard Taruskin — Musorgsky: Eight Essays and an Epilogue