Mussorgsky was the most original and imaginative of the Russian composers of the group known as the ‘Mighty Handful’. Khovanshchina, set in Moscow during the seventeenth century, contrasts the political machinations of the period with the religious beliefs of a sect known as the Old Believers. This recording, made in Leningrad in 1946, is a fine example of the strengths of the Kirov Theatre of Opera and Ballet (formerly the Marïinsky Theatre, where the opera was first performed), and of the distinguished conductor Boris Khaikin. The principal rôles of Dosifey and Marfa are sung by two of the most oustanding Russian singers of the post-war period, Mark Reizen and Sofia Preobrazhenskaya.