Director Alexander Titel staged the grand canvas of M. P. Mussorgsky - "Khovanshchina", a tragic picture of the people's sacrifice throughout the ages. Mussorgsky worked on "Khovanshchina" for seven years but never completed it. After the composer's death, his friend and associate Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov orchestrated the opera, and in the 20th century, Dmitri Shostakovich offered his orchestration. According to Mussorgsky, his goal was to create a folk drama - to reflect in music the strength and power of the Russian people, drawing parallels between his time and the end of the 17th century. "The past in the present - that is my task," he wrote in one of his letters. As a result, a work was born, the main hero of which is the people. The central scenes in Mussorgsky's work are mass, choral. Director Alexander Titel in his production reflects the composer's idea, emphasizing the recognizability of characters and situations regardless of historical time. The crowd in Titel's production is multi-layered; its heroes are identical to each other, yet do not merge into a common grayness. The events of the opera unfold after the death of Tsar Fyodor Alexeyevich, who left no direct heir. The throne was to pass to one of his brothers - Peter, whose mother came from the Naryshkin family, or Ivan - a relative of the Miloslavskys. The struggle between these two noble clans unfolds against the backdrop of the Streltsy uprising, led by the Streltsy commander Ivan Khovansky. The director finds no positive heroes in this opera. The blame lies with all those who are not part of the chorus - the court intrigants, the powerful, those who strive for power. And the victim of the upheavals and manipulations becomes the people. Vladimir Arefyev's scenography is extremely concise, lacking in domestic detail: everything indicates that the events occurring on stage are timeless. The performance lasts 3 hours and 30 minutes. See more performances on our website in the theater section. The event schedule on KudaGo will suggest where to go in Moscow.