Opera in two parts (7 scenes)
Mussorgsky’s first version to his own libretto after Pushkin and Karamsin
Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes (with one intermission)
This great epic opera takes place in Russia between 1598 and 1605. Boris Godunov ascends the throne, praying for the guidance of God in the great task before him. The old monk Pimen, who is writing a chronicle of Russia, tells Grigory Otrepyev that the young Prince Dmitri, the son of late Tsar Ivan the Terrible, was killed by the usurper, Boris Godunov. The ambitious Grigory decides to pose as Dmitri in order to claim the Russian throne.
Tsar Boris is never at peace: he is haunted by the memory of Dmitri’s murder. When he learns that a pretender has emerged in Lithuania under the name of Dmitri, the shattered Boris has a vision of the murdered child.
A simpleton, tormented by the cruelty of children, compares Boris with Herod, thus expressing the people’s hostile attitude towards their tsar. Boris, ill and demented with guilt, can take no more and dies. He accepts death as redemption for his sin