Travel tips for opera lovers – Moscow and Mussorgsky

Mussorgsky in Moscow

The series about historical places of opera art & culture. Get to know exciting excursion and travel ideas for opera lovers. This time: Mussorgsky in Moscow.

All Destinations on google maps with links to detailed Blogposts:

Mussorgski in Moskau

Mussorgsky’s artistic center was in St. Petersburg throughout his life, but it was his first visit to Moscow at the age of 20 that made a deep impression on him and triggered a “love for everything Russian.”

Destination Cathedral square Kremlin

Listen to the fascinating sound of church bells in St. Catherine’s Square. In Mussorgsky’s masterpiece “Boris Godunov” the coronation scene takes place on the Cathedral Square in front of the Cathedrals of the Dormition and Annunciation of the Virgin Mary, whose bells ring festively. Mussorgsky worked for a long time on the sound of the church bells, his friend Rimsky Korsakoff helped him. The bells of the Orthodox Church have a peculiar and complex sound, because the interaction of the bells has no harmonic foundation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChumJPHiIVQ

Cathedral square:

Mussorgsky imitates the sound of these bells with two chords that together create an atonal moment that has a fascinating effect on the listener. The bells sound expressive and modern and the listener feels to be transported 50 years forward in time to Bartok.

Da zdravstvuet!! (Long live our Tsar / Coronation scene)

https://opera-inside.com/boris-godunov-by-modest-mussorgsky-the-opera-guide-and-synopsis/#Da

Listen also to the beginning of Rachmaninov’s famous 2nd Piano Concerto with the opening piano chords, and you will hear Mussorgsky’s bells from the coronation scene of “Boris Godunov”!

Rachmaninov 2nd piano concerto first movement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJRHht55E1M

Destination Tretjakowskaja Galereja (Kunstmuseum)

10 days before Mussorgsky’s death Ilya Repin painted a portrait of the terminally ill musician. The portrait was painted in a room of the hospital where Mussorgsky was being cared for. Repin painted the musician, scarred by his alcoholic illness, in four sessions. The result was an almost tender portrait of the Russian, his gaze seems to have already drifted away, the light background allows the portrait to come expressively into the foreground.

This painting is recognized as a masterpiece and is exhibited in the State Tretyakov Gallery, an important art museum in Moscow, which exhibits, among other things, many other masterful portraits. The main building of the gallery is located on Lavrushinsky Street in the historic Samoskvoretsky district, near the Tretyakovskaya metro station.

Modest Mussorgski, Painting by Ilya Repin: