Boris Godunov (opera) staging or recording "Boris Godunov". This typically involves choosing the 1872 version and augmenting it with the St. Basil's Scene from the 1869 version. This practice is popular because it conserves a maximum amount of music, it gives the title character another appearance on stage, and because in the St. Basil's Scene Boris is challenged by the Yurodivïy, the embodiment of his conscience. However, because the composer transferred the episode of the Yurodivïy and the urchins from the St. Basil's Scene to the Kromï Scene when revising the opera, restoring the St. Basil's Scene to its former location creates a
Boris Godunov (opera) finished in 1872 (vocal score, 14 December 1871; full score 23 June 1872), and submitted to the Imperial Theatres in the autumn. Most Mussorgsky biographers claim that the directorate of the Imperial Theatres also rejected the revised version of "Boris Godunov", even providing a date: 6 May 1872 (Calvocoressi), or 29 October 1872 (Lloyd-Jones). Recent researchers point out that there is insufficient evidence to support this claim, emphasizing that in his revision Mussorgsky had rectified the only objection the directorate is known to have made. In any case, Mussorgsky's friends took matters into their own hands, arranging the performance of