Khovantchina by Modeste Moussorgski

Khovantchina

Opera by Modest Mussorgsky

Хованщина
Opera by Modest Mussorgsky

Libretto by the composer
Orchestrated version by Dmitri Shostakovich, finale by Igor Stravinsky
First performed on 21 February 1886 (Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov version) in St Petersburg
Last time at the Grand Théâtre de Genève in 1981-1982
New production

Sung in Russian with French and English surtitles
Duration: approx. 3h05 with one intermission (Duration is indicative and subject to change)

Cast

Musical Director Alejo Pérez
Stage Director Calixto Bieito
Scenographer Rebecca Ringst
Costumes designer Ingo Krügler
Lighting Designer Michael Bauer
Dramaturgy Beate Breidenbach
Choir director Mark Biggins

Prince Ivan Khovansky Dmitry Ulyanov
Prince Andrey Khovansky, Arnold Rutkowski
Prince Vasily Golitsin Dmitry Golovnin
Dosifey Taras Shtonda
Marfa Raehann Bryce-Davis
Boyar Fyodor Shaklovity Vladislav Sulimsky
Emma Ekaterina Bakanova
Scrivener Michael J. Scott
Susanna Liene Kinča
Kuzka Emanuel Tomljenović

Grand Théâtre de Genève Chorus
Maîtrise du Conservatoire populaire de Genève
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande

About

Brutal and unscrupulous struggles for power, in which those who suffer the most are those who participate the least – the common people: it’s a situation typical to many authoritarian regimes, including present-day Russia. So we don’t have to look far today to find the ‘past in the present’, as Mussorgsky was already wishing when creating the work. It seems very much as if history is repeating itself, not only in Russia, but also in many parts of the world.

Three socio-political trends collide in Khovantchina: the West- facing current, interested in opening up towards Europe, inspired by Peter the Great and embodied in the opera by the enlightened and cultured Prince Golyzin; the conservatism of the boyars, who hold to ancestral traditions and want to ensure their power, represented by Ivan Khovanski and his formidable Streltsy regiments; and finally the Old Believers, a sectarian and conservative religious group advocating a Russia closed in on itself and protected from European decadence, and a very influential social force, led by the priest Dossifej. ‘Khovanshchina’ moreover refers here to a conspiracy hatched by the boyar Khovanski and bloodily repressed by the man who will determine the future of Russia after the opera: Peter the Great.

Mussorgsky’s final work is a grand choral opera both deeply rooted in Russian musical tradition, and pointing very much towards the future. The composer had to leave his legacy unfinished, dying in 1881 at the age of just 42, destroyed by alcohol. Several composers stepped in to complete the work, among whom Rimsky-Korsakov is undoubtedly the most popular. The Grand Théâtre de Genève presents the work in Dimitri Shostakovich’s orchestration, which is closer to Mussorgsky’s harsh musical language, but with the finale by Igor Stravinsky which carries the work into the realms of spiritual transcendence.

This production sees director Calixto Bieito complete his cycle of Russian operas for the Geneva stage, supported as ever by conductor Alejo Perez, with whom the collaboration began with Prokofiev’s War and Peace and continues on from Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mzensk. At the centre of Bieito’s always-vivid staging, beyond the chorus, is the opera’s most important female character, Marfa, played here by the dazzling and breathtaking American mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis. Returning to the Grand Théâtre de Genève, Dmitri Ulyanov plays Prince Ivan Khovanski – worlds away from his General Kuzoumov in War and Peace, his Philip II in Don Carlos, or even his Boris in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Baritone Vladislav Sulimsky, who impressed as Macbeth at the Salzburg Festival in August 2023, joins the cast’s other great Slavic performers in the role of the boyar Chaklovity.