The claims made by those listeners and critics who favour recordings taken
from live performances over studio productions invariably revolve around the
sense of dramatic involvement and continuity that derives from stage
productions captured on disc. This is therefore a very odd compilation,
featuring as it does individual scenes from four distinct performances taped
over a fifteen year period at the Vienna State Opera and with only one
singer, Ferruccio Furlanetto, in common between them. He features in two of
his major roles, and the odd way in which these tracks have been assembled
is emphasised by the extended pause inserted between Philip's aria in
Don Carlo and the scene with the Grand Inquisitor which should
immediately follow it.
Furlanetto in his extensive career has made a great many recordings, and
his voice will be familiar to most opera collectors. He has a richness and
evenness of tone throughout his extensive range, but his basically lyrical
tone is heard at its best in lines that demand a broad melodic
cantilena. There has sometimes been a suspicion of 'forcing' and
even grittiness when he has undertaken more dramatic roles. His Philip here
is not altogether free of these defects, ending with a resort to mere
shouting at the end of track 5. His beautifully sustained delivery of the
big aria is surely altogether too sympathetic for this tyrant who only just
before the interval has been supervising the wholesale burning of his own
subjects. The scene with the Grand Inquisitor opens almost jauntily, with
the sinister trombones almost in a parody of waltz time. Both singers and
orchestra display a sense of looseness both of rhythm and pitch. In the
earlier recording of the Philip-Posa duet Carlos Álvarez's vibrato on
sustained notes is picked up unmercifully by the microphone. There are a
number of places on this disc where voices recede temporarily into the
background.
The booklet quotes selections from three reviews of Fuirlanetto's stage
performances of
Boris Godunov on stage which remark on his perhaps
surprising dramatic impact in the role. Certainly there is a good deal more
involvement here, but also a good deal more shouting, and not only in the
clock scene. There is plenty of precedent for this style of interpretation
from Chaliapin onwards, and Mussorgsky himself marks several notated
passages to be 'spoken'. Somehow however passages of histrionics which fit
neatly into the Rimsky-Korsakov version of the score favoured by Chaliapin
and Christoff (also a noted interpreter of the role of Philip) sound more
obtrusive when heard in the context of Mussorgsky's original scoring.
The back of the box misleadingly states "English text enclosed" but in
fact this statement refers only to the fact that the booklet notes are given
in German, English and Italian. The interesting discussion in these notes on
the relationship between the historic characters of Philip and their
fictional representation on the operatic stage are not above a few
historical inaccuracies of their own, as when we are informed Furlanetto "is
the only non-Russian singer ever to have sung the role of Boris Godunov at
the Mariinski Theatre in St Petersburg and the Bolshoi in Moscow." Not only
have Robert Lloyd and George London respectively performed at these two
venues, but their performances have been recorded to boot. Maybe the cause
of historical accuracy would have been better served by the addition of the
essential word "both".
A disc for fans of the singer, I would imagine; for others a case for
occasional listening only. Neither category will presumably be disturbed by
the lack of texts or translations.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
Performance detailsDon
Carlo1. Restate!
2.
Il Grand Inquisitor!
Boris Godunov3.
Boris's
monologue
4.
Death scene
Ferruccio Furlanetto (bass) - Philip
12,
Boris
34; Carlos Álvarez
1 and Bruno Caproni
2
(baritones) - Posa; Eric Halfvarson (bass)
2 - Grand Inquisitor;
Benediky Kobel
2 (tenor) - Lerma; Mariam Gauci
2
(soprano) - Elisabeth; Dolora Zajick
2 (mezzo) - Eboli; Michaela
Selinger
3 and Stephanie Houtzeel
4 (mezzo) - Feodor;
Jorma Salvasti
3 (tenor) - Shuisky; Wolfram Igor
Derntl
3 (tenor) - Boyar
Chorus and Orchestra of Vienna State Opera/
1Michael Halász,
2Vjekoslav Šutej,
3Daniele Gatti and Tugan Sokhiev
(conductors)
rec. Vienna State Opera,
116 September 1997,
219
January 2001,
328 May 2007 and
420 April 2012
