Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov

Modest Mussorgskys Boris Godunov stands out among the major works of the opera repertoire in having an extremely complex creative history. The revised Boris was completed in 1872, and performed two years later in St Petersburg, while the Moscow audience had to wait until 1888, seven years after the death of its composer. In order to promote the work, Mussorgskys colleague and friend Rimsky-Korsakov later undertook to revise the work, making the orchestration more traditional and colourful and softening a number of harsh harmonies. It was the Rimsky-Korsakov version that took the opera out of Russia and without it, the opera would not be as widely known as it is today. In recent times, however, several opera houses have begun performing the more abrasive original version from 1869, and it is this Boris that has been recorded here. It is performed by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra under its principal guest conductor, Kent Nagano. They are joined by a cast of mainly Russian vocal soloists, headed by Alexander Tsymbalyuk as Boris. In the opera, as in Pushkins drama, the Russian people plays a hugely important role here performed by the Göteborg Opera Chorus.