Modest Musorgsky and Boris Godunov
Subtitle: myths, realities, reconsiderations
By: Caryl Emerson, Robert William Oldani.
Contributors: Oldani, Robert William.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1994
Place of publication: Cambridge
Language: eng
Number of pages: 339
Subjects: Mussorgsky, Modest Petrovich, 1839-1881
Description: Caryl Emerson (a literary specialist) and Robert William Oldani (a music historian) take a new and 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 interpretive 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 open phases of Russian cultural life.

The volume contains a selection of classic texts in criticism, numerous production photographs, a bibliography and discography. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of opera, music history, and Russian literature and culture as well as to opera enthusiasts.
Notes: Includes discography (p. 317-323), bibliographical references (p. 324-332), and index.