The Bolshoi Opera’s production of Boris Godunov, which they brought to Covent Garden last week, is in almost all respects in a time warp, though it turned out to be a most agreeable one. For the first time in many years, we were able to hear Rimsky-Korsakov’s version of the opera, which has been so widely execrated for its well-meant efforts to ‘correct’ Mussorgsky’s barbarous harmonies, and to enrich his orchestration, that one would only admit to enjoying it to one’s most confidential musical confessor. There are of course recordings of this allegedly vandalistic act easily available, among them one featuring the great Boris Christoff, who insisted (almost always) on using this version, which certainly provides the singer of the title role with a much bigger ego trip. But all we have seen recently have been either the extremely austere first version (the Mariinsky bought it to the Royal Opera last year) or the fuller but still pretty ascetic second, with more scenes, but still with the suffering Russian people as the centre of the action, rather than the anti-hero Boris (but why does Mussorgsky provide him with such undeniably noble music?).
Not only that, this production dates from 1948, and is to be retired next year. It was hard, I found, not to treat it as camp for the first scene, especially since the chorus still makes those gestures beloved of all opera choruses, but especially of Russian ones, turning to one another in horror or amazement, raising their arms in helpless gestures of supplication, and the rest of it. But with the arrival of the Boris, 29-year-old Mikhail Kazakov, a performer of immense power, grand of appearance and with a medium-sized but wonderfully beautiful and expressive voice, things attained their proper seriousness, and didn’t lose it. The celebrations, as pepped up by Rimsky, had superb élan, the whole show emerged from the inverted commas in which it had begun, and we settled down for an evening of convincing grandeur, intimacy, epic suffering and the intricate relations of private anguish and public courage. Not only was it hugely entertaining in the old grand style, with one astoundingly elaborate set succeeding another — that for the Polish scene actually drew applause — but it was also moving and involving rather than, as I have often found Boris, impressive but somewhat distanced.
The price we paid was not only a grotesque profusion of intervals, but also protracted pauses between each successive scene, so the evening became epic in another sense, badly over-running. Though Boris is ramshackle, it needn’t seem quite so uncumulative as this. And surely it is a mistake to have both the St Basil’s and the Kromy Forest scene, neither of them containing the opera’s best music, and both ending with the Simpleton’s lament for Mother Russia. Since the slithery Jesuit Rangoni, at whose behest Marina Mnishek seduces the Imposter (usually known as the Pretender), was eliminated, except as a momentary spectral presence at the end of the Polish scene, and his music is really fascinating, that seemed perverse, as well as leaving Marina’s motivation unclear. Elena Manistina, who played her, is an arresting singer and a formidable if not precisely an erotic presence. The end of the pseudo-love duet is, in this version, a dose of lushness which suggests the imminent intrusion of Scheherazade.
The whole cast was up to their roles, even, in some cases, several sizes too large. The Tsarevich could be taken by a woman who looks more plausibly like a young boy than Elena Novak, but overall the impression was of teamwork on the highest level. The conducting of Alexander Vedernikov, who has a superb orchestra at his disposal, was lacking in tautness, not only rhythmically but also in the articulation of chords. But not seriously. It was an evening to give one pause. So thoroughly traditional, even reactionary an account of a work as this can provide just as much vital dramatic sustenance as the most voguish Konzept production.
The other Bolshoi offering was Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel, one of those operas whose prestige so far outruns its merits that one is tempted to look for a conspiracy. This production dates only from 2004, and is by Francesca Zambello. The basic set is a fairly grand tenement, with dummies gazing out of the odd window. If the story makes no sense set, as it originally was, in the 16th century, it makes double nonsense set in the 1920s. There is no coherence at any level in the plot, or in the actions of the characters. This is almost as true of the symbolist novel by Valery Bryusov from which it derives, but that merely shows Prokofiev’s fallible taste in his choice of sources. Anyway, it gave the composer the opportunity to write a great deal of shrill and inconsequential music, which was again admirably performed under Vedernikov. Tatiana Smirnova’s account of the central role of Renata is most impressive, and the hapless Ruprecht gets a good performance from Boris Statsenko.
All the endeavours of the performers are in vain, however, in view of the senselessness of every aspect of this work, the most interesting music of which found its way into the Third Symphony.
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