Organization

Conductor

Valery Gergiev

Mezzo-soprano

Yulia Matochkina

Marfa

Bass

Mikhail Petrenko

Prince Ivan Khovansky

Tenor

Yevgeny Akimov

Prince Andrey Khovansky

Baritone

Vladislav Sulimsky

Shaklovity

Andrei Zorin

Scrivener

Yekaterina Sergeyeva

Pavel Smelkov

Stage director

Leonid Baratov

Set designer

Fyodor Fedorovsky

Lighting designer

Vladimir Lukasevich

Costume designer

Tatiana Noginova

Instrumentalist

Marina Mishuk

Irina Soboleva

Choreographer

Fyodor Lopukhov

Chorus master

Konstantin Rylov

Larisa Shveikovskaya

Laura Bustamante

Tatiana Makarchuk

Irina Kolodyazhnaya

Anatoly Badaev

Yevgeny Plekhanov

Roman Krukovich

Alexei Bublik

Vyacheslav Vasilyev

Marat Mukhametzyanov

Dmitry Nelasov

Ilya Astafurov

Vsevolod Marilov

Evgeny Mizin

Singer

Mergen Sandanov

Prince Vasiliy Golitsin

Pianist

Sergei Pleshivtsev

Dosifey

Vladimir Vaneev

Сергей Севастьянов

Mingiyan Odzhaev

Alexei Smirnov

Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre

Russian

Khovanshchina

Vladivostok

Russia

Big Hall

Public

English

Approved

Modest Musorgsky’s Khovanshchina is a distinctive name in Russian operatic music. It is no wonder that critics have dubbed the opera a “chronicle of Russian life”, and the composer himself has named it nothing less than a “national musical drama”. The historical plot and individual music language closely resembling intonations of living speech, a large cast and “speaking” orchestra are the components that have enabled this composition to be of paramount importance.

There is no striking love strand in the opera. This is one of the peculiar features that mark it out of other popular operas. Khovanshchina cuts across other profound and global issues. The bloody strife for power and battle for influence in the largest country, the fidelity and vile betrayal of former friends and allies, the right or proven faith for which people can suffer martyrdom are just some themes risen by the opera. In Khovanshchina, the love between a man and a woman is shown only as an ugly extreme. It is either an overmastering violent passion as between Andrey Khovansky and Emma or a bigoted possessiveness with determination to burn the object of one’s affections rather than to give her to another man as between Andrey Khovansky and Marfa.

Musorgsky’s score is excitingly exuberant and realistic. Various large-scale choral scenes, lyrical arias of heroes and heroines, highly emotional dialogues, and colorful orchestral canvases able to depict everything – from the dawn on the Moscow River to the terrible tragic fire – have generated its own musical universe. This is the reason why performing Khovanshchina in concert is not a middle-ground alternative to performing it in scenery but a self-contained format that allows the public to hear all rich voices and understand all subtleties in this great operatic drama.

Natalia Rogudeeva

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Instrumentation

Crew