Modest Musorgsky and Boris Godunov: Myths, Realities, Reconsiderations

di Caryl Emerson (Autore)

Robert William Oldani (Autore)

Cambridge University Press, 1994

Caryl Emerson (a literary specialist) and Robert William Oldani (a music historian) take a 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 interpretative 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 phases of Russian cultural life.

• Autore: Caryl Emerson, Robert William Oldani
• Editore: Cambridge University Press
• Collana: Cambridge Opera Handbooks
• Anno: 1994
• Rilegatura: Hardback
• Pagine: 356 p.
• Dimensioni: 236 x 155 mm
• Peso: 700 gr.
• EAN: 9780521361934

Testo in English