Sara Krulwich/The New York Times  Khovanshchina Foreground from left, Ildar Abdrazakov, Olga Borodina and Misha Didyk in a scene from the revival of this Mussorgsky work, which opened on Monday at the Metropolitan Opera House.  It has been a month of immolations at the Metropolitan Opera. First came the conflagration that brings about the fall of the gods at the end of Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung,” and now the fiery finale that martyrs a religious sect in Mussorgsky’s “Khovanshchina,” which opened on Monday.  Breaking news about the arts, coverage of live events, critical reviews, multimedia and more.  A sortable calendar of noteworthy cultural events in the New York region, selected by Times critics.  Foreground from left, Misha Didyk, Wendy Bryn Harmer, Ildar Abdrazakov and Anatoli Kotscherga as Prince Ivan Khovansky, in âKhovanshchina.â  Despite the flames, “Götterdämmerung” left me cold. But “Khovanshchina” burns white-hot. Blazingly sung, acted with conviction and conducted with intensity by Kirill Petrenko, it is one of the best things the Met has done this season.  Mussorgsky mined episodes from 17th-century Russian history for a brooding work of both wide scope and disquieting intimacy. The nation’s future is in play, and the characters represent the warring factions vying for authority. They are archetypes, but their emotions and weaknesses — destructive self-righteousness is universal in “Khovanshchina” — come to life in music of shining grandeur that recedes to passages of disarming delicacy. Folk songs mingle with majestic choruses.  The work is deliberate in its pace and episodic in its structure, its characters ambiguous and unsympathetic. But with the passionate performances in this revival of August Everding’s lucid production, introduced in 1985 and not seen here since 1999, the risks and idiosyncrasies of “Khovanshchina” feel inspired.  The Met’s Russian, Ukrainian and Georgian cast was idiomatic and consistently superb, led by the commanding bass Anatoli Kotscherga in a belated, booming Met debut as Ivan Khovansky, the leader of a rebellion against the czar. The softness and steel in Olga Borodina’s mezzo-soprano were ideal for Marfa, a member of the fundamentalist Old Believers sect, with mystical tendencies.  The baritone George Gagnidze was richly forbidding as Shaklovity, one of the czar’s allies, and Ildar Abdrazakov’s bass-baritone full and eloquent as Dosifei, the leader of the Old Believers. The tenor Vladimir Galouzine was passionate, as always, as the reform-minded nobleman Golitsin.  Perhaps the most impressive performance was Mr. Petrenko’s. The orchestra rose to powerful climaxes, but in quieter, conversational moments he held the sound carefully below the singers. His pacing was controlled but flexible, ebbing, flowing and inexorably building under Shaklovity’s dark monologue bemoaning the state of Russia.  While the chorus sounded astonishing — clear and secure — the men tended to get ahead of Mr. Petrenko, and the whole group’s acting, as is too often the case, was inconsistent: sometimes engaged, sometimes detached. The ballet in the penultimate scene does nothing to advance the opera’s plot or themes, particularly not with Benjamin Millepied’s bland new choreography.  But there were moments I won’t soon forget. Mr. Kotscherga’s delivery of Khovansky’s final greeting to his troops — “Good day, my children” — moved from thunderous arrogance to patronizing kindliness to hushed fear, capturing the character in a single line. With only the barest of sets in the third scene for Marfa’s confession that she is haunted by a past love, Ms. Borodina made the cavernous Met feel tiny.  Mussorgsky never finished or arranged his opera, and the Met performs it in the version completed by Shostakovich, with one exception for this revival: Mr. Petrenko has interpolated the ending of another version, this one by Stravinsky. Unlike Shostakovich’s crashing finale, Stravinsky’s fades to nothing as the flames rise around the Old Believers. In this version “Khovanshchina” subsides back into the dawn with which it began, offering little hope but tremendous beauty.  âKhovanshchinaâ runs through March 17 at the Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center; (212) 362-6000, metopera.org.
Mussorgskyâs sweeping epic of political fragmentation and religious fundamentalism in the Russia of the late 1600s is back on the Met stage, fiery finale and all.