The production premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre on July 13, 1952.
Renewed version – May 1, 2000.
Musorgsky himself defined the genre of his grandiose historical work as a folk musical drama. The theme of "ill-fated sufferer Rus'" runs through the opera like a red thread: in an era of turmoil and change, the Russian people find themselves torn apart by the need to choose their path, a dispute about the old and the new, and any outcome turns out to be fatal.