The fall of democracy

The choir receives the applaus after a beautiful performance of the opera Boris Godunov
 by Modest Mussorgsky by the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, 14 Juni 2025.

In Modest Mussorgsky’s opera “Boris Godunov” – currently performed by The National Opera in Amsterdam – the Russian tsar Boris Godunov rises to the throne through the murder of the son of Ivan the Terrible, yet a child. His ascent to the throne is controversial, but Boris Godunov is asked to stay in power by an impoverished populace for the sake of their nation’s stability. During his reign, the people expect an improvement of their lives but nothing changes. Meanwhile, other alleged pretenders to the throne try to overthrow Boris Godunov, and the people suffer from repression and neglect and retreat themselves in their own private lives. Through the years, Boris is increasingly tormented by his consciousness of his past of having murdered a child. He descends into paranoid madness, when a pretender to the throne marches on Moscow, and he dies. Next, Russia suffers from a period of unrest and fighting between different political factions.

Opera is art and music, but many operas are also political statements. Also Mussorgsky’s opera “Boris Godunov” is of that kind. Mussorgsky certainly thought of the Russia of his time when composing the opera, but the stage director of the performance in Amsterdam, Kirill Serebrennikov (who had fled Russia in 2022), gave it a modern interpretation. This is quite possible, for the opera explores themes that are still present in modern Russia: the corruption of power, complicity amid widespread injustice, fatalism among the masses, the futility of resisting tyranny, and the nature of life and death itself. The apathy of the masses is represented in an original way: Not a choir walking and singing on the stage, as so often in operas, but people in apartments in an old-fashioned flat building of Soviet time, as there still are so many in Russia (see photo). But Serebrennikov, though being Russian, restricts his political criticism not to Russia, for what applied and applies to Russia is increasingly applicable to the today’s USA as well.
In an interview in the program book of the opera Serebrennikov says: “In Putin’s Russia, people remain speechless out of self-preservation — or swear loyalty to the regime. The state literally buys loyalty, offering the poorest villagers money to go to war and kill neighbors — sums they never imagined before. There is no resistance. Those who protested are now imprisoned or exiled. But what’s wrong with people who send loved ones to war for a paycheck? Why do the widows thank the state instead of cursing it? How did we get here — where complaints are about rusty rifles or bad food, not the killing of innocents?” And that’s what Serebrennikov’s interpretation of Mussorgsky’s opera clearly expresses. However, this is a pure “Russian interpretation” of the opera, but what about an “American interpretation”? For Serebrennikov had certainly not only a criticism of Russia in his mind. In a subtle way, his interpretation of the opera refers also to the situation in the USA. Does this mean that the increasing protests against the Trump regime will fail and that finally the American people will fall into apathy?
This brings me to another reading of the opera. Serebrennikov relates the opera to the fate of the common people, despite its mainline of the rise and fall of tsar Boris Godunov. However, I think that, in view of the present political situation, the opera can also be interpreted at a higher level. After the fall of the Soviet Union, a new child was born in Russia, a child called Democracy. However, soon Democracy was killed by a new tsar: Tsar Putin. As in the opera, it is not only so that Putin has made himself tsar, but a big part of the populace wanted and wants him to stay in power, and just like in the opera opposition is suppressed. In this interpretation Mussorgsky’s opera tells the story of the new Russia and predicts that after Putin’s death a period of unrest will follow. For who will succeed tsar Putin? However, it is hard to imagine that Putin will get pangs of conscience when the end of his career comes near.
In the USA, we see something similar, though in the USA it is not that the child Democracy is killed, since there Democracy is already an old man. Nevertheless, a new tsar has come to the throne by the wish of the people. Once in power this new tsar Trump sees it as one of his main tasks to kill old man Democracy and to persecute everyone on Democracy’s side. If we follow the opera, ultimately the now rising protests against the Trump regime will fail and the American people will fall into apathy. When tsar Trump has quitted the scene, the country will face difficult times and much discord. Nevertheless, also in this American reading the weak point is that it is hard to imagine that Trump will get pangs of conscience for having killed Democracy.
Despite its weak points, I think that this interpretation of “Boris Godunov” is not unrealistic. Be it is it may, as bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny, who sings the part of Boris Godunov, says, when asked what the main message of the opera is: “Arrogance is always punished, and trying to elevate yourself above another has a price. In this opera Boris pays that price in an extremely sad way. I think Mussorgsky wanted to show the world how a dictator like him comes to an end.”