DOI: 10.36871 / hon.202002012
Authors
V. A. Aleksandrova
State Institute for Art Studies, Moscow, Russian Federation
Abstract
The article is devoted to the history of an unrealized performance of M. P. Mussorgsky’s opera
"Khovanshchina" orchestrated by B. V. Asafyev. On the basis of archival documents, stored
in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts, the Russian National Museum of Music,
Central State Archive of Literature and Art of Saint Petersburg, the Bolshoi Theatre Museum,
most of which are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, studied the circumstances
under which the opera was planned to be staged in the State Academic Theatre of Opera
and Ballet (nowadays — the Mariinsky Theatre). Fragments from the reports of the Artistic
Council of Opera at the State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet meetings, the correspondence
between B. V. Asafyev and P. A. Lamm, the manuscript "P. A. Lamm. A Biography" by
O. P. Lamm and other unpublished archival documents are cited.
The author comes to the conclusion that most attempts to perform "Khovanshchina" were
hindered by the difficult socio-political circumstances of the 1930s, while the existing assumptions
about the creative failure of the Asafyev’s orchestration don’t find clear affirmation, neither
in historical documents, nor in the existing manuscript of the orchestral score.
Keywords
M. P. Mussorgsky, B. V. Asafyev, P. A. Lamm, V. A. Dranishnikov, Russian opera, "Khovanshchina"