Mariinsky Theatre opera stars to sing Khovanshchina in Kiev

The Mariinsky Theatre will be staging Leonid Baratov’s legendary production of Khovanshchina with sets by Fyodor Fyodorovsky which has long been in the theatre’s repertoire, first appearing on the playbill in 1960.
Modest Musorgsky’s immense score with the incredibly beautiful choruses, the famous orchestral introduction Dawn over the River Moskva and the composer’s sculpturally defined images o the dissident Marfa, Dosifei, Prince Ivan Khovansky and Vasily Golitsyn – in this opera the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra under Valery Gergiev, the outstanding soloists and the Chorus appear powerfully and vividly.

Valery Gergiev: “Over the course o its incredibly rich history, the Mariinsky Theatre has witnessed dozens if not hundreds o premieres. But it is, first and foremost, the essential classical Russian works that have proved truly groundbreaking, and o these Khovanshchina occupies a very special place indeed.”

On 7 May the theatre in Kiev will be hosting performances by acclaimed Mariinsky Opera Company singers Olga Borodina, Vladimir Galouzine, Gennady Bezzubenkov, Mikhail Kit and Alexei Steblyanko.

Vladimir Galouzine said o the opera that “This Mariinsky Theatre production is a very old one, and it is brilliant in terms o the set designs and the directing. The sets are completely mind-blowing. And the final scene, when the monastery burns and collapses to the sounds o that magnificent music, even today makes my spine tingle – it’s a tremendous impression.”

For Olga Borodina, the role of Marfa is always a triumph. Recently Borodina and Vladimir Galouzine both sang in Khovanshchina at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Critics’ responses at the time were nothing short o ecstatic: “The lead female role – that o the dissident Marfa – has proved an incredible triumph for the divine Olga Borodina. Impeccable as to the timbre of its sound and rich in amplitude, the singer’s powerful and beautiful voice is full o emotional contrasts. Irate and free-willed in the first aria ‘Well, well, Prince! You have been faithful to me!’, confident in herself and prophetic in the famous fortune-telling scene Secret Forces, meek and suffering deeply at her beloved’s betrayal (the singer’s extremely tender piano is quite stunning) and despairing and reckless in her scene with Andrei – every appearance o Borodina as Marfa becomes true theatre o beautiful singing and acting, in the finale reaching a high degree o drama. You can’t stop a Marfa like that! … in each scene the singer’s plastique, style o behaviour and voice change until they are unrecognisable. Borodina’s very presence on the stage sets a high standard o drama for the rest o the cast in the opera to follow. In numerous interviews the singer has referred to the role o Marfa – a ‘pure’ Russian woman as Musorgsky wrote – as her favourite. I don’t think that’s by chance – it is as if Borodina’s voice were created for this role, and after such a performance it is impossible to imagine any other Marfa.” (Sergei Elkin, OperaNews.ru)

Performances of operas in concert are one of the most longstanding traditions of the Easter Festival. It is far from every year, however, that the Mariinsky Theatre and the Easter Festival join forces and together perform full-scale productions. At the Easter Festival over the years there have been performances of Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov in 2003 on Cathedral Square inside the Moscow Kremlin, Prokofiev’s War and Peace in 2005 at the Russian Army Theatre in Moscow, Wagner’s Parsifal in 2006 at the National Opera of Ukraine in Kiev, Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges in 2007 and Musorgsky’s Khovanshchina and Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Maid of Pskov in 2008 at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theatre.