Mussorgsky: Khovanshchina - Live at the Nationaltheater, Munich (2007) [Blu-ray]

Kent Nagano superbly masters the challenges presented by this score, shapes the dynamics with subtle intensity, and casts the score in a mellow glow.

As Marfa, the spurned lover of Ivan Khovansky‘s son Andrei, Doris Soffel unfolds such a rich palette of sonorities, from the pathos of the lower ranges to shaded distant heights, that “one is tempted to speak of a Russian mezzo”. Fantastic cast: Anatoly Kotscherga portrays the religious leader Dosifei with fervor and bluster, Klaus Florian Vogt dazzles heroically as Andrey, John Daszak is a technically flawless Golitsin, and bass-baritone Paata Burchuladze gives a charismatic, forceful account of Prince Ivan Khovansky.

The final chorus, which Mussorgsky did not compose, is played in the orchestrally transparent version of Igor Stravinsky – the third great Russian composer who contributed to making “Khovanshchina“ a gripping stage work for all times.

With his stripped-down sets and historicizing costumes, director Dmitri Tcherniakov, one of the new voices of contemporary Russian theater, builds a bridge to the political present.