Kent Nagano superbly masters the challenges presented by this score, shapes the dynamics with subtle intensity, and casts the score in a mellow glow. As Marfa, the spurned lover of Ivan Khovansky‘s son Andrei, Doris Soffel unfolds such a rich palette of sonorities, from the pathos of the lower ranges to shaded discant heights, that “one is tempted to speak of a Russian mezzo”. The final chorus, which Mussorgsky did not compose, is played in the orchestrally transparent version of Igor Stravinsky – the third great Russian composer who contributed to making “Khovanshchina“ a timeless, gripping stage work. With his stripped-down sets and historicising costumes, director Dmitri Tcherniakov, one of the new voices of contemporary Russian theatre, builds a bridge to the political present. A lesson in history and music!

Modest Mussorgsky's final opera, left unfinished at the time of this death in March of 1881.

A lyrical drama in a context of political, religious and cultural revolution, in the heart of the late 17th century in Russia. The story takes place during the 1682 revolt opposing the Old Believers and the New Orthodox. Ivan Khovanski (Vladimir Ognovenko), head of the streltsy's uprising, embodies the movement of religious indignation which ends up being bloodily crushed.

There are elements of Macbeth in this political fable, in which the ghost of the child that Boris has had killed in order to seize the throne appears as an impostor. Adapting Pushkin's epic poem, Mussorgsky composed a meditation on the solitude of power, a populist drama in which the real protagonist is the Russian people with its burden of eternal suffering. Ivo Van Hove is no stranger to grand political frescos. This is his first production for the Paris Opera.

A one-off production of Boris Godunov was staged by Andrei Konchalovsky at the Teatro Regio in Torino in 2010, with Orlin Anastassov in the leading role and Gianandrea Noseda conducting the Orchestra del Teatro Regio.

A devil is at work in the Ukrainian village of Sorochintsy, terrifying residents and travellers alike. Among them a farmer whose daughter is not allowed to marry her lover because her quarrelsome stepmother is against it.