Boris Godunov (opera) the repertory due to difficulty in appreciating his raw and uncompromising idiom. Therefore, Rimsky-Korsakov was justified in making improvements to keep the work alive and increase the public's awareness of Mussorgsky's melodic and dramatic genius. The Rimsky-Korsakov version remained the one usually performed in Russia, even after Mussorgsky's earthier original (1872) gained a place in Western opera houses. The Bolshoy Theatre has only recently embraced the composer's own version. Dmitriy Shostakovich worked on "Boris Godunov" in 1939–1940 on a commission from the Bolshoy Theatre for a new production of the opera. A conflation of the 1869 and 1872 versions had
Boris Godunov (play) only in an English translation. This production was based on Meyerhold's design and featured Prokofiev's music, together with supplemental music by Peter Westergaard. Chester Dunning, Caryl Emerson, and Sergei Fomichev's "The Uncensored Boris Godunov" seeks to rescue Pushkin's play from obscurity. The Royal Shakespeare Company staged the British premiere of the original 1825 edition at Stratford on Avon in the fall of 2012. The play had been translated into English by Adrian Mitchell. A familiarity with the historical events surrounding the Time of Troubles — the interregnum period of relative anarchy following the end of the Rurik Dynasty (1598) and