This week we have highlights from Modest Mussorgsky's masterpiece, Boris Godunov, based on the play buy Pushkin. Boris Godunov served the court of Ivan IV, Ivan the Terrible, and in 1584 was named by Ivan to be one of the guardians for the heir, Dimitri, who shortly afterward dies. Godunov is then elected to the throne. The plot assumes Dmitri was murdered by Boris. But Grigory, a monk, claims to be Dmitri, alive and well after all, and tries to overthrow Boris. Boris ruled for only seven years, and while not all of it was bad, he was ruthless, paranoid, and troubled to say the least, and that comes through in his music.
There are many versions of the opera, including that of the composer's friend Rimsky-Korsakov, which has fallen out of favor. The one from which we are playing selections tthis week is the now popular 1872 version, a revision by Mussorgsky from his 1869 version.
Valery Gergiev conducts the Kirov Opera Orchestra and Chorus of the Marinsky theater in St. Petersburg, and and all Russian cast led by Vladimir Vaneev as Boris.