Metropolitan Opera Archives

Khovanshchina received thirteen performances this season.
Performed in the Dmitri Shostakovich orchestration .

FUNDING:
Production gift of DeWitt and Lila Acheson Wallace, Co-founders of Reader&apos;s Digest

Review 1:

Review of Peter G. Davis in the October 25 issue of New York Magazine

"...A gigantic panorama, "Khovanshchina" is a work of genius, and the lucid Met revival is strongly cast, authoritatively conducted"

The Metropolitan Opera's new production of Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina is a considerable achievement. Even the work's most ardent adherents, Russian opera aficionados who have labored patiently to untangle the strands of this frighteningly complex historical-political drama, could hardly have hoped for such a lucid presentation, let alone one more strongly cast or authoritatively conducted. Once again, as so often at the Met these days, the company seems to make its most satisfying artistic statements with worthy but unpopular projects -- Khovanshchina is a work of genius, but it has never appealed to a wide audience and probably never will. Still, major opera companies must keep trying, and the Met is doing all it can. Even the program booklet is crammed with valuable information on the opera - I advise anyone attending future performances to arrive early and bone up.

August Everding's incisive direction clearly delineates the opera's three basic themes, divisive forces that were tearing Russia apart in the 1680s, just before Peter the Great took over the throne and established his New Order. In the second scene, Mussorgsky brings these factions together in an extraordinary summit meeting led by three potent theatrical personalities obviously ripe for self-destruction: Ivan Khovansky (Aage Haugland). The lecherous and power-hungry leader of the Streltsy musketeers: Vasily Golitsin (Wieslaw Ochman), the pro Western adviser and lover of the regent, Sophia; and Dosifei (Martti Talvela), the saintly patriarch of the Old Believers, a sect that aims to restore Russia's ancient religious beliefs. Everding's keen perception of how these characters clash, the superb performances by three gifted singing actors, and Mussorgsky's disturbing insights into political conflicts dictated by human stupidity-it all strikes home hard, and opera has never seemed so relevant.

There is much more to this gigantic panorama. Perhaps the most compelling figure of all is Marfa, a devoted Old Believer and the discarded lover of Khovansky's son, Andrei-a tortured creature who never quite untangles her strong sensual urges from her fanatic religious ecstasy. Helga Dernesch's smoldering interpretation is right on the mark, even if her singing did go haywire during the last scene on [the first] night. But then, there is not a weak performance in this excellent cast: Allan Monk's Shaklovily, the smiling assassin who shoots Khovansky in the middle of an orgy wills his Persian handmaidens; Denes Gulyas's lily-livered but pleasantly Iyrical Andrei; Andrea Velis's wiley Scribe; Natalia Rom's sorely beset Emma sexually attacked by both Andrei and his father; and the entire chorus, trained by David Stivender, as always in Mussorgsky a powerful symbol of the Russian people's indomitable spirit and capacity to survive anything.

The Met wisely uses Shostakovich's faithful instrumentation of the composer's piano score rather than RimskyKorsakov's bowdlerization, although nearly an hour of music was cut. While this is not a crippling factor, it would have been instructive to test Khovanshchina whole just this once, especially since the conductor, Neeme Jarvi paces, colors, and shapes the music with such warmth and dramatic vitality. Ming Cho Lee's minimal sets are only functional, although the finale, as the Old Believers immolate themselves in their rickety two-story wooden church, is a bloodcurdling image that few will soon forget.

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