Modest Musorgsky and Boris Godunov
Myths, Realities, Reconsiderations

Caryl Emerson and Robert Oldani take a comprehensive look at the most famous Russian opera, Modest Musorgsky's Boris Godunov.

Caryl Emerson (Author), Robert William Oldani (Author)

9780521369763, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 2 November 2006

356 pages, 17 b/w illus.
22.8 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.537 kg

"Complex yet rewarding in structure and intent, the book provides an admirable range of cultural-historical, musical and textological analysis and context, as well as performance and reception history....The volume features an excellent select biography and an interesting...discography." David Shengold, Slavic and East European Journal

Caryl Emerson (a literary specialist) and Robert William Oldani (a music historian) take a comprehensive look at the most famous Russian opera, Modest Musorgsky's Boris Godunov. The result is both a historical study of a famous work and an interpretative piece of scholarship. The topics discussed include: the 'Boris Tale' in history; Karamzin's history and Pushkin's drama as literary sources; Musorgsky's innovations as a librettist and as a theorist of the sung Russian word; the strange story of the opera's composition and revision; its first productions at home and abroad; and an in-depth musical analysis. In the process, several often-met errors in Musorgsky scholarship are clarified and corrected. A final chapter speculates on the opera's themes of political murder, guilt and legitimacy - so important to Russian literary and national identity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - and the new role the 'Boris plot' and its composer might come to play in more recent phases of Russian cultural life.

List of illustrations
List of tables
Preface and acknowledgments
Part I. Background: 1. Tsar Boris in history
2. Musorgsky's literary sources, Karamzin and Pushkin
3. Narrative and musical synopsis of the opera
4. History of the composition, rejection, revision, and acceptance of Boris Godunov
5. A tale of two productions - St. Petersburg (1874–1882), Paris (1908)
Part II. Entr'acte: 6. Boris and the censor: documents
7. The opera through the years: selected texts in criticism
Part III. Interpretation: 8. The Boris libretto as a formal, literary, and historical problem
9. The music
10. Boris Godunov during the jubilee decade: the 1980s and beyond
Discography
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Opera [AVGC9]