Modest Musorgsky and Boris Godunov

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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.

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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.

Reviews

Notes: Journal of the Music Library Association

The latest addition to a growing body of work on Modest Musorgsky makes a major contribution. The authors, veterans in the field, have approached Musorgsky's masterpiece from multiple directions, attempting to correct long-standing errors, to challenge widely held misinterpretations, and to draw together much current thinking on the opera. The resulting volume contains outstanding scholarship and provocative new insights delivered in an effective style....As a whole the book serves two functions. First, its fine scholarship contributes substantial new material to the Musorgsky literature. Second, it serves as a handbook to the opera for any involved with it: listeners, performers, producers, or critics. Indeed, it should be required background reading for all who face the perplexing choices among versions and editions or who wish to place this complex masterpiece in perspective

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