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Modest Musorgskij, Chovanščina

Milan, Teatro alla Scala, 27 February 2019

★★★★☆

   Qui la versione in italiano

Khovanshchina, the apocalypse

Of Modest Mussorgsky’s ten projected operas, Boris Godunov, despite its numerous versions, is the only one he fully completed: three operas remained mere projects and six were unfinished. Khovanshchina, started in 1872, was incomplete by the time of the composer’s death in March 1881, still lacking endings for Acts 2 and 5 and almost all its orchestration.

The first performance in St Petersburg in 1886 was in Rimsky-Korsakov’s heavily reworked version, but there were also editions orchestrated by Stravinsky and Ravel…

continues on bachtrack.com

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