KHOVANSHCHINA (Rimsky-Korsakov completion)
Alexei Krivchenya (Prince Ivan Khovanski)
Vladislav Pyavko (Prince Andrei Khovanski)
Alexei Maslennikov (Prince Vasili Golitsin)
Viktor Nechipailo (Boyar Shakloviti)
Alexander Ognivtsev (Dosifei)
Irina Arkhipova (Marfa)
Chorus and Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre
Boris Khaikin (conductor)
Melodiya/HMV SLS 5023
3 stereo LPs [P] 1974
5 FLAC files (one for each act) + booklet/libretto and Gramophone review
The Gramophone review (November 1975) states:
"...at the center, as it should be, is Marfa. In her, the conflicts of the plot meet - awareness of the changing order, religious feeling, a sense of the supernatural (her Divination scene is superbly done), and a powerful concept of duty, all struggling for supremacy and expressed in a strong female sensuality. It is one of the greatest dramatic parts in Russian opera, one to which all Russian mezzos long to match themselves; and Irina Arkhipova is in full command of it. Her sneering comments to Andrey as he is discovered pursuing Emma, her intensity, even violence, of emotion towards him, yet her religious idealism (her "Slovno svyechi" foretelling their death in the fire, is magnificently delivered) - all this and a sense of many more complex resources of feeling combine in a richly coloured interpretation of this most Dostoyevskyan of Mussorgsky's characters. For more than any of the others in the intricate plot, more even than Dosifey, she is troubled at the centre of her soul about the nature of goodness and how it is to be expressed in man."
