The enfant terrible of opera is exhausted
How the industry destroys its stars: Calixto Bieito’s Geneva staging of Mussorgsky’s gigantic unfinished opera Khovantchina, which will be staged this Easter in Salzburg, is a sad shadow of his former works.
Ilya Repin: Princess-Regent Sofia being unhappy after her arrest /// Tretyakov Gallery of Moscow ©
« Sodom and Gomorrah! What times these are!… Hard times indeed!... (Rubbing hands.)
And yet, we’ll turn a profit still... Oh yes!… »
(Entering words of the Scribe in the opening scene of act I)
For you, my dear Viennese opera lovers, the opera in question is hardly unfamiliar. It comes to the Salzburger Osterfestspiele this April with a very promising cast and team. And some of you might have even seen the Khovantchina at the Wiener Staatsoper, that Claudio Abbado did in 1989 to mark the 150th anniversary of Modest Mussorgsky’s birth. Directed by Alfred Kirchner, that production firmly cemented Mussorgsky’s place in the European repertoire. Some may also recall – perhaps all too vividly – the controversial 2014 staging by Lev Dodin (with Semyon Bychkov’s superb leading of the orchestra), which met a decidedly mixed reception. By now, Khovanshchina is neither as mysterious nor as forgotten as some might think.
The message: In the end, ordinary people suffer
The same holds true for Europe’s broader operatic landscape: Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden staged its own Khovantchina just under a year ago. Musically, it was impeccable thanks to Simone Young’s conducting, the stage didn’t fail either: Claus Guth’s approach is decent, it underscored the opera’s central message. Which is: In the turmoil of political strife, it is always ordinary people who suffer the most. Opéra de Paris revived its 2001 production by Andrei Serban in winter 2022, just one month before Russia’s war against Ukraine. La Scala produced its Khovantchina in Feb. 2019 with music led by Valery Gergiev in mediocre staging by Mario Martone.
Now, Khovantchina has reached Geneva where it serves as the final act of the 'Russian Cycle' conceived by its intendant Aviel Cahn. It is his second encounter with Mussorgsky's opera after commissioning David Alden's 2014 production for Opera Vlaanderen, which he led from 2009 to 2019. This cycle is part of his signature style (more to that in the Post Scriptum at the end of the article) throughout his Geneve tenure, Cahn has cultivated a close-knit pool of directors, conductors, and soloists who collaborate with him throughout multiple seasons. His programming follows a thematic, matrix-like structure – Baroque, Classical, Italian, French, German, modernist, and contemporary works are all represented, with each season carrying its own suggested identity. While Cahn’s approach is certainly more dynamic than the sluggish repertoire systems of many major European houses, it is not without its pitfalls. Artists can easily fall into routine – or even complacency – resulting in disappointments like Thalheimer’s Tristan und Isolde (which opened the 2024-25 season) or Phelim McDermott’s underwhelming Aida (2019).
Many of the directors and conductors Cahn brought to Geneve from his previous tenure in Opera Ballet Vlaanderen house in Antwerp. Among them is today’s protagonist: Calixto Bieito, the enfant terrible of opera, who rose to prominence in the early 2000s thanks to Barcelona’s Liceu Opera. Cahn first invited Bieito to Antwerp in the 2011-12 season for Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny. For Geneva, he envisioned a Russian opera trilogy in collaboration with Bieito and conductor Alejo Pérez (now music director in Antwerp): Prokofiev’s War and Peace (September 2021 coproduced with Hungarian State Opera, Bohema has reviewed it), the revival of Bieito’s 2013-14 Antwerp production of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (May 2023), and now, the underwhelming culmination – Mussorgsky’s Khovantchina.
« What did say tsar Peter? - called it Khovantchina and ordered to root it out! »
(Chaklovity to princes Khovansky and Golitsyn at the very end of Act II)
To many, Khovantchina’s content still remains daunting – a sprawling grand opera weighed down by its dense plot and convoluted libretto. It’s easy for the average viewer to get lost. Yet at its core, once approached properly, there’s nothing difficult about it. While completing Boris Godunov (premiered in 1874), Mussorgsky began sketching this grand historical tragedy of the Russian people and of Russia as such, depicting events of the power struggles of May-September 1682 in Moscow. In these violent events – the fight for the throne, the consolidation of absolute monarchy, and the systematic persecution of the Old Believers – he saw an echoing counterpoint for the anxieties of his time: The late 1870s Russia under emperor Alexander II. Revolutionary fervour was brewing; talks of terrorist acts against the imperial regime grew louder (the Tsar would be indeed assassinated in March 1881), and societal tensions festered. Mussorgsky, a Slavophile at heart, channeled this violent antagonism into Khovantchina, named after the power-drunk Prince Ivan Khovansky, leader of the Streltsy – an army of privileged soldiers who became so powerful that they threatened the Throne – who descended into tyranny.
Determined to realise his vision, Mussorgsky wrote the libretto himself – a decision that backfired. He struggled with the opera for over a decade (1870–1881), never actually finishing it or resolving its dramatic structure. Unlike Boris Godunov, which leaned on Pushkin’s poetic genius, Khovantchina was entirely of Mussorgsky’s making: its narrative, characters, and pacing were his alone to shape. Mussorgsky drowned in the historical minutiae of the 1682 Streltsy Uprising. It happened some weeks after the death of Tsar Fyodor III Alexeevitch, whose reforms wavered Russia, his death opened up a vicious circle of power struggle in Moscow. More than ten noble families took part in it, the Russian Tsardom simultaneously had 2 young tsars Ivan V and Peter I (known today as Peter the Great) and tsarina Sofia as regent.
Konstantin Korovin: Boyars for the opera’s 1911 production of Mariinsky State Opera /// Saint Petersburg Theatre Museum ©
Mussorgsky arguably got lost in all of it missing many historic facts and adapting history really voluntarily. For example, he showed the victory of the Romanovs as mainly achieved by tsar Peter, who was only 10 years old at the time. The composer’s historic vision was truly fractured and incoherent, still with the help from his friends, including the influential critic Vladimir Stassov, he pulled off many gripping scenes, some strong characters, sublime music and mainly a tragedy of all the people set in opera. After Mussorgsky’s death in late March 1881, the opera remained a patchwork of scenes and sketches without orchestration. Two major versions consequently emerged: an orchestration done by his close friend Rimsky-Korsakov in 1886 and then Shostakovich’s in 1958. It’s this fractured structure, this undone legacy of Khovantchina that leaves modern audiences struggling to grasp it – a work unfinished, yet undeniably beautiful and monumental.
« All turned to ashes, all is forgotten… oh Saint Russia, it won’t be soon before you wash away the Tatar’s rust. »
(Print Golitsyn final words of his solo scene in II act)
Can I Summarize it? Yes—this is an opera about vicious fight for power, politics and it’s unfortunate and inevitable consequence: the suffering of the ordinary people. The Romanov-aligned boyars clash with Prince Khovansky and his Streltsy hunta of Moscow, who are backed by the Old Believers—commoners that are on the blink of persecution for rejecting the Romanovs’ orthodox church reforms. Across five acts, Mussorgsky’s History of a Nation (as he envisioned it) unfolds very theatrically on multiple levels, with the opera struggling to keep pace of such a history: It latches and jumps from one elaborate scene to another, tracking individual characters and people – all pawns in brutal conflict of the Khovantchina era in the summer of 1682. The narrative leaps from Moscow’s citizens to boyars scheming, from the Old Believer’s private anguish to the general inexorable and overwhelming march of History, which spares no one.
This Mussorgsky’s jumping “lens” gradually reveals the tragedy: the exile and perish of Old Believers which was inevitable for Russia in order to embrace its imperial future of Peter the Great; the Romanov’s resurgence to the Kremlin and onto the throne, the hypocrisy of the boyars who pay lip service to Russia’s welfare while innocent lives perish. The fifth act’s climax – the Old Believer’s mass self-immolation, a desperate act against impending persecution – is a harrowing testament to the cruelty of politics, which is of never-ending actuality even in 2025.
« This opera is completely deranged. »
(Dmitry Chernyakov in an interview before the 2007 of Khovanshchina at Bayerische Staatsoper)
For all its complexity, Khovantchina’s core message remains relevant – but its power depends entirely on the director's approach. Calixto Bieito, despite 25 years of staging brutality poetics across European opera houses failed to comprehend it. His Khovantchina isn't merely a misfire – it is an example of how the factory-like working mode of opera today sacrifices artistic cultural reckoning for quantity and undercooked decisions. The staging doesn’t appear as a unique work derived from the opera, but rather as a repetition of Bieito’s language applied to yet another opera he staged.
At first glance, Bieito pretends to have a concept, drawing parallels with morbid contemporary Russia. But this begs the question – does he actually understand Russia well enough to fuse his political commentary with Mussorgsky's monumental score the way other stage directors actually achieved this? (Chernyakov’s staging of Khovantchina first comes to mind). The answer reveals itself as pitiful: these half-baked 'parallels' are just a cover for his artistic exhaustion when facing such monumental opera as Khovantchina. That of course doesn’t mean, that only Russian stage directors can achieve this, however, Bieito failed this time to do so.
Rebecca Ringst built him a gigantic semicircular modular screen that could give a lot, but due to the lack of actual approach essentially functions like a classic 19th century theater backdrop – video artist Sarah Derendinger apparently didn't get any good ideas from him, and her videos don’t stray far from the classic illustrative approaches. Ingo Krügler dressed the characters in 21st century attires and threw a carpet over Dossifey, while Bieito directed everything with such unconvincing laziness, mechanically moving from scene to scene, that the overall impression became downright depressing, proving the point that opera can’t be done in amounts Bieito does – it requires very elaborate, wise, talented pitch and time.
Only three good charakters out of a great many
Of all his strained findings issued from his already exhausted staging language, that we are all familiar with, I genuinely appreciated only three: the character and extended role of Kouzka (Emanuel Tomljenovic) that became some sort of fool who knows everything already and serves prince Khovansky; Shaklovity’s aria in Act III (also cheers to Vladislav Sulimsky experience of playing it), in which the boyar laments the State's condition before the crackdown of violence on the Old Believers and on Streltsy across Moscow. He obsessively washes a bathtub on the black stage, the same tub where he'll later strangle Ivan Khovansky in Act IV; and the lonely, grim burning of a model of the European Parliament on the empty stage at the end of Act III – a nice move. Bieito apparently developed a taste for strangulations, as Marfa also chokes Andrei Khovansky in the finale. But as we say in Russian, "God forgive him" for that, because the real directorial failures – the ones that completely sink this already challenging opera – are yet to come.
The European Parliament burning /// Carole Parodi ©
The prelude Dawn on the Moscow River opens with a chorus standing with suitcases on an empty stage to depart towards? – they’ll return with these suitcases only at the very end to train and vanquish; the letter-writing scene to Tsarevna Sofia features Russian hackers "breaking" the screen – a motif that goes nowhere; the Persian slaves' dance in Khovansky's palace in the IV. act shows the prince getting drunk in a bathtub while the female chorus strips out of their SWAT gear and twitches; the ridiculous model train coach that appears during the Streltsy's fall and Romanovs' return in Act IV's climax, which the chorus enters and exits before pretending to burn themselves in it; and finally in Act V's crucial self-immolation scene – which must be a horrifying climax of the entire opera – the chorus simply pushes the train car into a white spotlight... «Lord forgive us», as we also say in Russian, ‘cause there are also many details which make a salad or rather a hodgepodge of random, weak solutions. A result either from laziness or Bieito’s lost interest in opera itself – it isn’t for me to judge.
How many good productions can one do in one year?
I will argue that this outcome reflects the director’s exhausted creative reserves after churning out radically different operas in a rapid succession: October 2024 saw his Trionfi for Hamburg Staatsoper, November brought Die tote Stadt in Bergen Opera, January finally unveiled his embattled Ring project with Das Rheingold in Opera de Paris, then our Geneva’s Khovantchina, followed by a Puccini Trittico for Teatro del’Opera di Roma in late April and Zelmira for the Rossini Opera Festival… Now, ask yourselves: what mortal, even a Meyerhold, Brecht, Brook, or Chéreau, could sustain such a productions’ treadmill? And Khovantchina (forgive me funs of Orff, Rossini, and Puccini) demands no less conceptual rigour and development than Wagner.
The infamous bathtub /// Carole Parodi ©
Not all here was in vain. The Orchestre de la Suisse Romande did justice to Mussorgsky’s score – this orchestra has lived with Russian music since its 1918 foundation by Ernest Ansermet, who premiered Stravinsky, championed Bartók, Janáček, and Scriabin. Alejo Pérez proves why he’s earning a reputation as a conductor unafraid of ambitious operatic projects; special praise for the Persian Dance’s nuanced phrasing – pure aural pleasure. Though at times, the orchestra drifted ahead or behind the soloists like it happened in the important scene of scribe speaking about the crackdown of Tsar on Moscow to streltsy in act III – the music is supposed to be imagining a horse battle and thus very dynamic. The Grand Théâtre chorus, while generally robust, faltered sometimes (ex. Same scene).
The soloists laid bare the divide between experienced Khovantchina singers and newcomers struggling with Mussorgsky. Ekaterina Bakanova’s debut as commoner Emma felt fully realised. Evidently, the Russian repertoire’s coripheuses shone: Dmitry Ulyanov (Prince Ivan Khovansky) made a very convincing swaggering, arrogant prince Ivan Khovansky, yet sometimes instead of singing he was speaking. Vladislav Sulimsky’s colourful baritone embodied the calculating boyar Shaklovity; Dmitry Golovnin made a regal entrance – wheeled onstage in an armchair – as the powerbroker Golitsyn. Taras Shtonda delivered a vocally sturdy spiritual leader of the Old Believer Dosifey, though Bieito denied him a proper praying scene. Michael J. Scott’s as Sribe suffered from a jarring Russian diction, while Emanuel Tomljeonic’s debut as Kuzka was a pleasant surprise – he delivered a very curious role of the ever exhibiting fool. Finally, Raehann Bryce-Davis’s debut in the role of Marfa showed some admirable Russian – but comparisons to Arkhipova or Semenchuk would underscore what was missing vocally.
« Have you come to know, O Princes, where lies Holy Russia’s destruction and in what lies Russia’s salvation?... Why then do you fall silent? »
(Dosifey talking to Khovansky and Golitsyn, act II)
It seems Khovantchina is destined to remain unfinished – always missing something. We'll see if Simon McBurney's upcoming production at the Osterfestspiele can complete it. Perhaps Mussorgsky himself suspected that no opera could ever digest the chaos of 1682, the Hegelian historicism of our minds, or the eclectic madness of our reeling 2025 world. The fractures in his score mirror the fractures in the world it tries to capture: a nation tearing itself apart, power shifting back and forth like sand, ordinary people burning for someone else's sins. This artistic complexity seems also to elude Bieito – astonishing, given that the Russian war that has engulfed Europe for three years now gave us plenty of occasions to determine our values and principles. Had he paused for just one moment in his operatic conveyor, had he glanced at our escalating political wretchedness and our society's open wounds, he might have understood Mussorgsky as profoundly as he actually already did a decade ago in his Boris Godunov for the Bayerische Staatsoper.
Operas like Khovantchina must wound in order to heal. They must force us to confront our world as Mussorgsky confronted his – so audiences leave changed, as Gerard Mortier insisted, they should. I’d like to think that the Old Believers’ fire still burns. I also wish that the followers of Trump, Alice Weidel, Herbert Kickl and Co. won’t be betrayed by those, who hold their trust, and won’t be suffering the same horrendous fate: To be extinguished by indifference of their cruel leaders.
« -Return to your homes, and await in peace the judgement of Fate. Farewell! Farewell!! (Prince Khovansky exits stage)
-Lord, do not let our enemies prevail, shield us and our homes by Thy mercy… » (Curtain slowly falls)
(end of Act III)
Post Scriptum: The «Aviel Cahn model»
Aviel Cahn cultivates a special way of leading ‘his’ opera house in Génève. Under this «Cahn model», Mariame Clément and conductor Stefano Montanari delivered a middling Donizetti Tudor trilogy for Geneva, while Kornél Mundruczo kickstarted his opera career here with three operas. Lydia Steier contributed two less successful productions, and Marc Minkowski took on three French grand operas. Tatjana Gürbaca staged two Janáček works, Thalheimer directed two Wagner operas, and Antonino Fogliani led three Italian opera productions, among others.
While Cahn’s approach is certainly more dynamic than the sluggish repertoire systems of many major European houses, it is not without its pitfalls. Artists can easily fall into routine—or even complacency—resulting in disappointments like Thalheimer’s Tristan und Isolde (which opened the 2024-25 season) or Phelim McDermott’s underwhelming Aida (2019). Many of these directors and conductors Cahn brought to Geneve from his previous tenure in Opera Ballet Vlaanderen house in Antwerp. Among them Calixto Bieito, whom Cahn first invited to Antwerp in the 2011-12 season for Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny.