The staging drifts into occasional dramatic lulls, but nevertheless provides a highly convincing exposition of this difficult but rewarding score. Mussorgsky's drama is an anomaly in the operatic canon, in that it is driven not by character, but rather by the onrush of history itself, in which characters are carried helplessly forward. These characters are invariably not deeply or subtly characterised, for they are but individual representations of a broken people: if we feel sorrow at the opera's conclusion, it is not for A or B, but rather for the collapse of Russian society in general, of which A and B are representations.

The narrative is concerned with the conflict between the old and the new, the traditional and the cosmopolitan. Here, the set's bricks and scaffolding suggest construction, but that the lighting is dim and the surfaces are grimy points to decay and ruin. We seem to stand in a period of change, but the staging is ambiguous as to what the reason is or what the outcome will be. In the final act, the back wall parts to reveal a wintry landscape of bare trees: are they dead, or will new growth brighten them when the harsh cold vanishes? Again, one finds only ambiguity. But then, I sense that Mussorgsky was less concerned with hinting at the future as he was with painting this shard of Russian history in stark, harrowing detail. Perhaps questions about the future will arise, but Stein Winge commendably notes in the DVD booklet "To give an answer, to offer a solution, would be very trite". In these troubled times, the present is all that one can be certain of.

In the atmospheric, dramatically functional and effectively lit sets, the talented cast enacts the drama convincingly. Nikolai Putilin's Shaklovity stalks the stage menacingly, a dark, Iago-like void at the centre of the narrative. Vladimir Ognovenko's Prince Ivan booms and blusters around the stage, looking increasingly ridiculous until his horrifying death: possibly one could object to his occasional comedic treatment of the role, but a few chuckles are no bad thing in this lengthy, laughless drama. Vladimir Galouzine, as Prince Andrei, once again displays his inexplicably baritonal tenor voice, here well suited to Mussorgsky's vocal contours. Robert Brubaker sings excellently as Golitsyn; Elena Zaremba is a vocally unsteady but nicely acted Marfa; Graham Clark has a vocal off-day as the Scribe, but his character interpretation beautifully blends absurdity and pathos.

The opera is performed in Shostakovich's evocative scoring. Michael Boder conducts superbly the Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatre del Liceu. It is a masterful interpretation, the silences truly registering and Shostakovich's angular lyricism and vibrant colour palates made explicit. The orchestra plays with purpose; the chorus sing to the same high standard. The whole is imperfect, but nevertheless fascinating.

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