SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Second Opinion. Mussorgsky, Boris Godunov: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of the San Francisco Opera,  Conductor, Vassily Sinaisky, War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco. 2.11.2008 (HS)

Boris Godunov – Samuel Ramey (bass-baritone)
Prince Shuisky - John Uhlenhopp as Prince (tenor)
Grigory/The Pretender Dimitri -  Vsevolod Grivnov (tenor)
Varlaam - Vladimir Ognovenko (bass)
Pimen - Vitalij Kowaljow (bass)
The Simpleton - Andrew Bidlack (tenor)
Innkeeper: Catherine Cook (mezzo-soprano)

The Act I Set

Probably no other other opera has gone through as many revisions, re-orchestrations, re-sorting of scenes and acts and other adaptations than has Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov. Right from the beginning, the composer himself went back to the drawing board. The Imperial Theater rejected his original 1869 version, noting among other things the lack of a significant female role. By 1872 the composer had reworked the seven existing scenes and added an entirely new act set in Poland, where the princess Marina decides to use a pretender to the throne as her path to becoming queen of Russia.

The stark scenes in the original more single-mindedly focus on a dark, brooding portrait of the troubled tsar than the grander, more epic-scaled opera we are accustomed to. By the time the original version finally was staged in 1928, several posthumous revisions, culminating in a colorfully orchestrated one by Rimsky-Korsakov, had changed Mussorgsky's tight, no-frills portrait into a grand opera.

This time around, San Francisco Opera mounted a strong, musically and dramatically moving production of the original version, never seen here. (In fact, Boris hasn't held the stage at SFO since James Morris assayed the role in 1992.) One can argue that the later versions are more complete, and the revisions to the original scenes make them play more smoothly,  but the original has a power of its own:  owing to a more economical palette of music and dramatic material and that single-minded focus on what's going in in Boris' mind without the distractions of colorful Polish balls and extensive scenes detailing plots against him. Instead we can follow Boris' disintegration from his accession to the throne through his growing madness and eventual death.

Samuel Ramey as Boris

Musically, Mussorgsky ends several scenes abruptly, the music stopping suddenly rather than reaching a climax or arching into rest. The curtain comes down for the one intermission at the end of the scene at an inn, where the drunken friar Varlaam and his pal Grigory, the pretender, are pursued by the tsar's guards. Despite the vivacity and comic elements of the scene, it ends so unpreparedly that only the drop of the curtain cued the audience to applaud.

This economy, however, gives the scenes a certain realistic power, the sense that we are encountering actual reality instead of a staging of it. In its way, this series of individual moments is affecting. The first two scenes, in later versions making up the prologue, show a crowd of peasants being asked to pray that Boris will accept the throne, followed by the coronation scene with the "slava" chorus and Boris' prayer. Then we cut to the monk Pimen's cell, where he recounts Boris' murder of the heir and Grigory decides to become the pretender. Then comes the scene at the inn. After intermission we get the scene in which Boris' monologue, wherein he sees the spectre of the murdered heir, then the scene of in which a simpleton confronts a frightened Boris, and the final scene of Boris' confrontation with Pimen and his death. End of opera. No Polish act, no Kromy Forest scene.

Some of the music we associate with Boris' big set-pieces had not yet been written for this score. But Samuel Ramey, in the title role, grabs hold of the material and gives us a portrait of a man haunted by his past deeds (having killed the heir to get the throne) and, in his dying moments, urges his son to keep his conscience clear in order to be a good ruler. At 66, Ramey can occupy a character with mesmerizing intensity and wield a gloriously dark bass-baritone. The wobble that has affected him in recent years stayed more or less in check in Sunday's performance, but a prominent dynamic beat on the correct pitch, especially in his mid-range, could be off-putting. At the top or the bottom, or in the big moments, he can still pull it together to achieve astonishing power.

The cast was strong across the board, both vocally and dramatically, especially bass Vitalij Kowaljow as Pimen, bass Vladimir Ognovenko as Varlaam and tenor Vsevolod Grivnov as Grigory, the pretender. As The Simpleton, first-year Adler Fellow Andrew Bidlack appeared in virtually every scene. Bald, cradling a model of an onion-domed Kremlin tower, he roamed the stage, interacting mutely with other characters, until encountering Boris in the penultimate scene. His disturbing presence and clear, pure tenor made for strong theater.

Vassily Sinaisky, chief guest conductor of the BBC Philharmonic who recently led performances of Carmen and Der Rosenkavalier at English National Opera, was strongest in the more intimate moments. The big crowd scenes never quite erupted with their full power, possibly because Mussorgsky's own orchestration was less colorful than the more familiar ones from Rimsky-Korsakov and Shostakovich. That only put more emphasis on Boris' internal struggles, which is exactly what made this version so compelling to watch.

Harvey Steiman

Pictures © Terrence McCarthy

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