poser. I maintain that in my intention to reharmonize and reorchestrate this great opera of Musorgsky there is certainly nothing for which I can be blamed; in any case I impute no sins to myself. . . . Only when I have revised the whole of Musorgsky's works shall I begin to be at peace and feel that my conscience is clear; for then I shall have done all that can and ought to be done for his compositions and his memory."
Boris was apparently successfully produced at. The Mariinski Theatre at St. Petersburg on January 24 (O. S.) 1874, but the opera did not retain its place in the repertory, although it was sporadically revived, and it was not produced outside of Russia. In 1896, Rimsky-Korsakoff's version was published, and has held the stage ever since.
Of this version, Montagu-Nathan admits that Rimsky seems to have "toned down a good many musical features which would have won acceptance today as having been extraordinarily prophetic." V. V. Stasoff, the Russian music critic, was opposed to the alterations. "While admitting Musorgsky's technical limitations," writes Rosa Newmarch, "and his tendency to be slovenly in workmanship, he (Stasoff) thought it might be better for the world to see this original and inspired composer with all his faults ruthlessly exposed to view than clothed in his right
