Modest Musorgsky and Boris Godunov : myths, realities, reconsiderations / by Caryl Emerson and Robert William Oldani.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Emerson, Caryl.

Contributor:

Oldani, Robert William.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mussorgsky, Modest Petrovich, 1839-1881. Boris Godunov.

Mussorgsky, Modest Petrovich.

Physical Description:

xiii, 339 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge [England] ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Summary:

Caryl Emerson (a literary specialist) and Robert William Oldani (a music historian) take a new and comprehensive look at the most famous Russian opera, Modest Musorgsky's Boris Godunov. The result is both a historical study of a famous work and an interpretive piece of scholarship. The topics discussed include: the "Boris Tale" in history; Karamzin's history and Pushkin's drama as literary sources; Musorgsky's Innovations as a librettist and as a theorist of the sung Russian word; the strange story of the opera's composition and revision; its first productions at home and abroad; and an in-depth musical analysis. In the process, several often-met errors in Musorgsky scholarship are clarified and corrected. A final chapter speculates on the opera's themes of political murder, guilt, and legitimacy - so important to Russian literary and national identity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - and the new role the "Boris plot" and its composer might come to play in more recent open phases of Russian cultural life. The volume contains a selection of classic texts in criticism, numerous production photographs, a bibliography and discography. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of opera, music history, and Russian literature and culture as well as to opera enthusiasts.

Notes:

Includes discography, bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0521361931

OCLC:

27383443