Boris Godunov (opera) The performance was a great success with the public. The Mariinsky Theatre was sold out; Mussorgsky had to take some 20 curtain calls; students sang choruses from the opera in the street. This time, however, the critical reaction was exceedingly hostile [see Critical Reception in this article for details]. Initial performances of "Boris Godunov" featured significant cuts. The entire Cell Scene was cut from the first performance, not, as is often supposed, due to censorship, but because Nápravník wished to avoid a lengthy performance, and frequently cut episodes he felt were ineffective. Later performances tended to be even more heavily
Wozzeck on the compositional direction of "Wozzeck". In a letter to his wife written in June 1918, he wrote, "There is a little bit of me in his character, since I have been spending these war years just as dependent on people I hate, have been in chains, sick, captive, resigned, in fact, humiliated." His correspondence and notebooks dating from the war years reveal a painful obsession with completing "Wozzeck". Compositional sketches and notes for both Wozzeck and the "" of Three Pieces for Orchestra that Berg made during the war are strewn with disjointed fragments of military ordinances and terminology.