Khovanshchina by Mussorgsky, sø. 21 juni 2020, Fra (2020/2020), I regi av Claus Guth, Dirigent Vladimir Jurowski, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin, Germany

Between 1682 and 1687, Moscow became the scene of political chaos, with Peter the Great finally taking power and being appointed the new tsar. The most diverse parties fought brutal battles for the throne: fanatical sectarians, so-called »Old Believers«, the Strelitzen, the historical bodyguard of the tsars, anarchist lone fighters and staunch supporters of Peter. But the real protagonist of the opera is the people. In the draft for his five-act opera »Khovanshchina« (»The Khovansky Case«), Modest Mussorgsky was not concerned with tracing the political events in detail, but rather presenting »the past in the present« in a huge collage of historical documents - a kind of meditation on the story with the means of the opera. The plan became virulent when the 1872 200-year celebrations in honor of Peter the Great took place. This ruler figure sparked the controversial question about the shape of modern Russia. When Mussorgsky died in 1881 at the age of only 42, his opera was neither completed nor orchestrated and from that point on it was open to a wide range of discussions. Five years later, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov premiered the work with major cuts and based on a libretto edited by the censorship authorities. In 1913 Igor Stravinsky composed a new version of the finale. It was not until the early 1930s that an authentic piano version was published, presenting the work in its original form and length.