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
The Cunning Little Vixen Forester enters and lies down against a tree for a nap. A curious Vixen Cub (usually sung by a young girl), inquisitively chases a frog right into the lap of the surprised forester who forcibly takes the vixen home as a pet. Time passes (in the form of an orchestral interlude) and we see the Vixen, now grown up into a young adult (and sung by a soprano), tied up in the forester's yard with the conservative old dachshund. Fed up with life in confinement, the vixen chews through her rope, attacks the Cock and Chocholka the hen, kills the