About the work
Opera by Modest Mussorgsky to his own libretto, composed roughly between 1872 and 1880 and left unfinished at his death in 1881. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov completed and orchestrated the score; in this version it received its first performance as a private staging by an amateur circle in Saint Petersburg on 21 February 1886, while a public performance at the Mariinsky Theatre followed only in 1911.
Plot
The opera is set during the Moscow uprising of 1682 and portrays the power struggle between the regent Sophia, the Streltsy leader Prince Ivan Khovansky, and the Old Believers opposed to church reform. Facing defeat, the Old Believers ultimately choose to die together in a self-inflicted fire.
Cultural significance
Alongside Boris Godunov, Khovanshchina is one of Mussorgsky's great historical dramas about upheavals in Russian history. Later reworkings, such as Dmitri Shostakovich's 1959 version made for a film adaptation, attest to the continuing importance of the unfinished work.