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When a power vacuum opens up in Tsarist Russia, a ruthlessly ambitious prince conspires with the Streltsy militia and the schismatic Old Believers to usurp the throne.
Based on real life events surrounding the Moscow Uprising of 1682, Mussorgsky’s political thriller is a powerful portrayal of a country in crisis. This 2015 production by Moscow State Stanislavsky Music Theatre uses Shostakovich's orchestration with a finale by Vladimir Kobekin.
Cast
Prince Ivan Khovansky
Prince Andrey Khovansky
Prince Vasiliy Golitsin
Dosifey
Marfa
Boyar Fyodor Shaklovity
Scrivener
Emma
Susanna
Kuzka
Varsonofiev
Streshnev
Golitsin's myrmidon
Streltsy
Kirill Kapachinskich & Maxim Osokin
A Voice
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Music
Conductor
Director
Sets
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In September 1874, Mussorgsky completed a piano score for Dawn over the Moskva River. It was intended to open his last opera, Khovanschina (The Khovansky Affair), which lay uncompleted upon his death from alcohol poisoning on March 28, 1881.
The topic of the opera was the rebellion of Prince Ivan Khovansky focused against the regent Sofia Alekseyevna (1682–1689) and the Westernizing reforms instituted by Tsar Peter the Great and Ivan IV. Plump. Assertive Sofia had wiled her way into the regency after her brother, Tsar Feodor III, a feeble and weak leader, died leaving succession matters in bloody political and familial confusion. She was lucky that the Moscow Uprising of 1682 supported her successful candidacy. She was actually well trained in government, and many said Feodor did her bidding during his reign. She was supported in this ascendancy by the Miloslavsky party and her own conniving strengths to gain the position. She immediately appointed Prince Vasily Galitzine (said to have been her lover, in spite of having a wife and large family) to handle political affairs.
So
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MUSSORGSKY: Prelude to Khovanshchina
06 Oct 2022
by Jeff Counts
THE COMPOSER – MODEST MUSSORGSKY (1839–1881) – If melancholy were a job, Mussorgsky would have enjoyed a very successful career. Haunted by the loss of his dear friend, Victor Hartmann (the inspiration for Pictures at an Exhibition), and left alone after his roommate Arseny Golenishchev-Kutozov moved out of their tiny shared flat to get married, Mussorgsky in 1874 was drinking a lot and wallowing in the misery of his own mortality. The departure of his friend Golenishchev-Kutozov was particularly tough on the composer, as the two companions (who were distant relatives) had shared a bond over the gloomy poetry Arseny wrote. In fact, the pair of song cycles Mussorgsky composed with Arseny’s words have titles that capture his mood at the time perfectly—Sunless and Songs and Dances of Death.
THE HISTORY – 1874 was not without some good news for Mussorgsky. Boris Godunov premiered with great public success that year, which for another artist might have signal