Mussorgsky's otheropera, unfinished on his death. It was completed by--big surprise--Rimsky-Korsakov, but he made a bunch of cuts and rewrote various music, so later Shostakovich re-completed it in a way more faithful to Mussorgsky's putative vision. Various other composers have also taken a whack at it, but the Shostakovich version is the one generally performed, and the one I saw, though even within that, I think there are little variations. Hmm.
Well, it's another historical thing. The Khovanskys are Ivan and his son Andrei, who are planning some sort of rebellion against the rulers with this military group they have, the Streltsy, and there's also the Old Believers, a religious sect, who...may in some way be allied with them? Or maybe not? Anyway, the rebellion is put down but the Streltsy are forgiven; the Old Believer people, on the other hand, are martyred.
It's a bit of an odd thing. There's loads of beautiful and exciting music, but the actual story and libretto...well, it has some pretty prominent issues. The first is that it's very centerless. Who is the main character here? Dosifey, the head of the New Believers, probably has the most to do, but he certainly doesn't feel like the protagonist. If you just looked at the opera and speculated, you would probably hit on the couple of Andrei and Marfa, one of the Old Believers. But that's really not the case here; they're very peripheral. It's probably most accurate to say "Oh, the protagonist is Russia itself." This has a very similar central message to Boris Godunov:boy, the country sure is tearing itself apart, and life sure does suck for the people. But, even though that opera isn't quite as closely focused on the title character as you might expect, he does serve as a center, and makes the whole feel more grounded and coherent. There's no one like that here. I was sort of reminded--speaking of Russian stuff--of Dostoevsky's novel Demons, which similarly lacks a hero and as a result is very hard to summarize.
Still, I suppose that's not necessarily a crititicism. It goes against what we expect from an opera, but that doesn't have to be bad. And here's another thing that falls into that category: beyond the very general outline, this story is fairly impenetrable to those of us who know nothing about the history or context. It's not at all clear what the stakes are or, for the most part, who the "good guys" are supposed to be, if any. Just a buncha soldiers and nobles milling around. And maybe that's the point! But it's not the most dramatically compelling thing. And anyway, I'm not so sure it even is the point, at least not entirely. I think the fact that it's sometimes hard to tell who we're meant to find sympathetic is at least in part due to simple bad writing. Are the Old Believers allied with the Khovanskys? Who knows? And especially, what is the deal with Marfa and Andrei? It seems like we're supposed to find it noble, or something, when he dies with her and the rest of the Believers at the end, in spite of him having deserted her before (strong echoes of Norma). But is it? Is he supposed to be at all sympathetic? The first time we see him he's about to rape a prisoner and is only stopped when Marfa appears, and he certainly doesn't do anything else that would make him seem noble. Blah. It doesn't really work for me.
This production is mostly traditional, but it does a few interesting things that I like. So Ivan, Khovansky père,is killed by Shaklovity, a loyalist officer. But in this version, Khovansky has this dwarf in his retinue, a mute character who, it seems, he treats as a pet, and it's actually the dwarf who murders him (clearly being in cahoots with Shaklovity). Not sure what if anything the message is here--trust no one?--but it worked for me. And then there's the very end, with the martrydom, which is visualized in a very striking way: all the Old Believers are standing on stage holding lit candles, and one by one they blow their candles out and collapse to the stage. Won't forget that in a hurry. Oh, and the other thing I like is Vladimir Vaneev as Dosifey. I've only seen him a few times, but he's always arresting. He hasn't exclusively appeared in Russian opera, even if that's the only place I've seen him, and he's worked internationally, so more, please.
Well. Anyway. I've probably underemphasized how good the music is here, just because it's hard to talk about music. But it is! Still, as a drama, there are obvious reasons why it's a distant second in popularity to Boris, and in that category, "it was unfinished" is very secondary.
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