Boris Godunov

Libretto by Modest Mussorgsky after Pushkin

2S,2M,A,4T,Bar,7B; chorus;
3(III=picc).3(III=corA).2.Ebcl.bcl.3(III=dbn)-4.3.3.1-timp.perc:tgl/tamb/SD/BD/cyms/tam-t/t.bells/glsp/xyl-2-4hp-pft-cel-strings-banda on stage:2-4crt/3-6hn/4tpt/6hn/4barsaxhn/2-4tubas-balalaikas.domras(opt)

1598-1605, Russia and Poland

Boris Godunov, the regent of the young Tsar Fyodor, has arranged the assasination of  the Tsar's half-brother and heir Dmitri, in order to seize power. When the Tsar himself dies Boris pretends to decline the crown, but his agents incite the Muscovite crowd to acclaim him as the new Tsar. Though racked with guilt, Boris is crowned. In the monastery of Chudov an old monk Pimen is writing a chronicle of Russia. He tells his novice Grigory of the history surrounding Boris, and Grigory resolves to avenge the murdered Dmitri. Leaving the monastery Grigory claims to be the dead Tsarevich and with two vagabond friars Varlaam and Missail escapes across the border into Lithuania. In his Kremlin rooms Boris learns of the pretender. His councillor Shuisky aims to reassure him by recounting the murder of Dmitri but this throws Boris into a state of hallucination.

In Poland, Grigory's lover Marina dreams of becoming tsarina and her Jesuit confessor Rangoni exhorts her to support the Catholic cause. Marina joins Grigory in a moonlit rendezvous and she drives him forward with his ambitions. The boyars hold an emergency meeting in the council hall in Moscow and Shuisky describes the Tsar's unstable mental state, confirmed when Boris enters. Pimen arrives to describe a miraculous cure performed at the tomb of Dmitri, causing the Tsar to collapse. Boris bids farewell to his son, prays for Russia, and dies. In the Kromy forest the people are in disordered revolt against Boris but rally behind Grigory's call to follow him to Moscow. A simpleton is left behind bewailing the fate of the Russian people.

A reorchestration of Musorgsky’s opera of 1868-72 for stage performance.  In four acts with a prologue.

Just before World War ll Shostakovich set about reorchestrating one of his favourite works in Russian music, Musorgsky’s mighty opera ‘Boris Godunov’. He was prompted to do this by dissatisfaction both with Rimsky-Korsakov’s famous version (which he considered unfaithful to Musorgsky) and with Musorgsky’s original scoring (which he considered too weak orchestrally).

The result is a third, quite different vision of this piece, starker and bleaker than Rimsky, tougher and more sonorous than Musorgsky. It is a vision which deserves to be heard as a powerful work of operatic imagination in its own right.

Note by Gerard McBurney

Dramatic