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 A Biography" by O. P. Lamm and other unpublished archival documents are cited.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existing assumptions about the creative failure of the Asafyev’s orchestration don’t find clear affirmation, neither in historical documents, nor in the existing manuscript of the orchestral score.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"