In neighbouring Poland, the Pretender’s claim gathers support. Boris hears tales of the risen Tsarevich and, stricken with guilt, suffers hallucinations. He bids farewell to his son and dies, as the Pretender and his supporters march on Moscow.

Boris Godunov’s complex route to the stage resulted in Musorgsky completing two quite different versions; this new production for The Royal Opera uses the first, from 1869. Pushkin’s Shakespeare-inspired play about the 16th-century tsar was suggested to Musorgsky as the ideal subject through which to explore his ideas on realism and naturalistic declamation. In 1869 the young composer submitted the finished opera to the Imperial Theatres Directorate, who rejected it, on the grounds that there were no female characters. Musorgsky revised the opera – but his 1872 version went far beyond the requirements of the Imperial Theatres and suggests the composer was writing under a whole new ideology. Acclaimed director Richard Jones (Il trittico for The Royal Opera; La fanciulla del West for ENO) directs a new production of the 1869 version, where Boris’s deeply felt guilt and horror at the human sacrifices he has made in his ascent to power is emphasized through the realistic depiction of the murder of the young Crown Prince.