Live Opera in cinema / Boris Godunov

LIVE OPERA IN CINEMA. Interestingly, live operas from some of the top opera houses such as The Metropolitan (the Met) are now sometimes available in a cinema theatre "near you", here in Oslo. The Met, established in 1883, now regularly transmits a number of their performances to other regions via a HD service thanks to certain sponsors. The calendar is available on the link here..

The Met's BORIS GODUNOV. Yesterday (23.10.10), I saw an excellent performance of Modest Musorgskij's opera Boris Godunov . It was broadcasted from the Met in New York to Oslo cinemas Ringen and Gimle. With a reputation for such cultural events, Gimle was sold out but Ringen could take more people. (In fact, all opera performances scheduled currently at Gimle seem easily sold out, at least it was when I booked my tickets for Boris Godunov on 25 September (for 300 NOK per ticket), whereas Ringen, a larger theatre East in Oslo still had vacant seats). Anyway, quite a large group of people still came to see and listen to this particular live opera performance also at Ringen, as did many people in other local theatres elsewhere, I presume. It was a great experience, because the singing and music by great artists and excellent performers were also dramatized with unifying aesthetic and ethical content, form and deeper meaning.
Here is a video from the initial work by Peter Stein (who later left but the work was continued by Stephen Wadsworth, see cast and production details below).



BORIS GODUNOV is a Russian epic opera - partly realistic in its drawing on Russian history and partly drawing on classical/experimental as well as folk music sources. Both music and libretto was written by Modest Musorgskij, or in English Mussorgsky (1839-1881). It is worth noting that he was inspired by Aleksandr Pusjkin's novel with the same name Boris Godunov (from 1830, though not allowed shown before 1870). Also much of Musorgskij's music were met with skepticism. It was not before his friend Rimskij-Korsakov rearranged the opera into a shorter piece and it later became performed with the brilliant singer Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin it became an international success. Later, the full complexities of Musorgskij's Boris have been rediscovered, one might say. The new Met version was, to our luck, performed with a mix of the first and second version of Musorgskij's original opera.

THE STORY in brief is zooming in on the ascendance of a new zar (tsar) and his relationship with the people or Russia at large. Boris Godunov, a bojar - who may have come to power by plotting or ordering the killing of Dimitri, the son of the former zar - has increasing doubts about his own role. Musorgskij shows us what this possibly criminal background does to the zar (he becomes haunted by a strange foreboding) and it influences his ethical relationship with the Russian people. He delivers out bread in the hope that people will forget the rumours. The people is however no unified heroic entity but rather expressed in nuanced and subtle ways by the choir as well as some noteworthy figures, for example, a couple of wandering monks (a new kind of character not common in operas at the time). In addition, the opera has a symbolic character, a fool, that tells the truth to the emperor.

THE PLOT. The opera shows the increasing self-doubts of the tsar on an enlarged background of hunger, mistrust, continued oppression of the people by the rich bojars (members of the highest ranks of the aristocracies), and political rivalry and plotting in and around Russia. This includes the false Dimitri, the Pretender, who is actually Grigorij, a former monk novice who hears about the previous political/criminal plot from his teacher, a chronicle writing old monk, Pimen. However, the young Grigorij - of the same age as would be the former tsar's son Dimitri - no more wants to become a humble monk continuing the chronicle writing. Very effectively, the book lies open on the stage floor throughout the opera and in some passages the key actors are literally in or playing on the book pages. Gregorij who reads the chronicle about the child killing, becomes filled with thoughts that he is the same age as Dimitri. Rather than justice or chronicle-writing, he wants to seize the throne for himself. When rumours begin to build up about this renegade "Dimitri", he escapes over the border to Lithunia. Later, pretending to be the next tsar, he engages in a loving relationship with Marina, a princess of Poland, who has her own ambitions for the Russian zarina throne and also is under influence of a Jesuit priest with ambitions for Russia - on behalf of the Roman-Catholic church.
It can be noted that this politically embedded love affair and Polish part of the opera was not in Musorgskij's imagination originally, it was actually inscribed into the opera by suggestion from Musorgskij's friend Rimskij-Korsakov. This latter composer also later made other, shorter versions of Musorgskij's Boris Godunov.

TOP TALENTS. Many top talents are listed in the Met's new compelling long version of Boris Godunov, among these are many excellent Russian singers such as Ekaterina Semenchuk and the German Rene Pape. The opera is sung in Russian, which is a challenge for non-Russians, of course. Rene Pape told the audience in an interview during one of the two breaks that he was "adopted" by all the Russian singers who each and all helped him express the words rightly. The conductor of this new performance is not to forget the highly creative Valery Gergiev from Maryinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, home to the Kirov Opera and Ballet. Gergiev is also connected creatively to the Met as this opera shows.

CAST
Conductor: Valery Gergiev
Marina: Ekaterina Semenchuk
Dimitri: Aleksandrs Antonenko
Shuisky: Oleg Balashov
Rangoni: Evgeny Nikitin
Boris Godunov: René Pape
Pimen: Mikhail Petrenko
Varlaam: Vladimir Ognovenko

THE PRODUCTION TEAM
Production: Stephen Wadsworth
Set Designer: Ferdinand Wögerbauer
Costume Designer: Moidele Bickel
Lighting Designer: Duane Schuler
Choreographer: Apostolia Tsolaki


OWN BRIEF REFLECTIONS ON PARTS OF THE MET PERFORMANCE. There is much to reflect upon in this magic opera. The music and epic story are accumulating into a unifying experience in its deeper-ethical layers and original complex music style as Mussorgsky had it composed. The scene shifts are however done swiftly, without much disturbance in this "new" Boris Godunov, and the costumes are traditionally rich, even against a background on a relatively stripped down modern stage design, which may help us focus on the main drama rather than exotic detailing. We still sense the fundamental consequences of human actions and the evolving gaps between the power elites and the people. Although a relatively clean or simple, stripped down stage can help focus on the inner tensions and outer troubling times, I am not sure whether we actually hear the bells or clocks of the cathedral in the death scene. A few destiny-ringing bells or some other suggestive sounds might perhaps have helped our imagination regarding the sounds of ghosts that Boris seems to hear. But the personal drama of Boris in Rene Pape's physical gestalting comes forward clear enough any way - whether the bells actually toll or not.

If I shall dare to point to something more suffusing that could be improved, it is one aspect that comes to my mind. In Yesterday's performance, I found the Dimitri character perhaps the most "weak" one ("weak" in relative terms because they are all high-performers in terms of singing!). Nonetheless, the dramatic acting of this and a few other key roles (also prince Shuisky) could be somewhat improved, e.g., the novice monk part by the Dimitri character was not so credible. For example, he did not seem to have been spending his time in a cell as a novice with the old monk Pimen, nor did he act particularly well as a thirsty wannabe ruler. He was more credible as a man longing for love though. As to the Polish acts, however, I really enjoyed the highly seductive song and tight interplay of Marina and the Jesuit priest Rangoni, both ridden by power ambitions and sexual undertones in a credible and memorable way.

Most moving for me was, nonetheless, the whole complex of music going on and on including the expressive singing and excellent acting of the self-doubting Boris (performed by Rene Pape), such as his dying act with his children present and also the various symbolic scenes with the fool.
The last Kromy scene in the woods - when people take violently revenge over bojars and their soldiers and a woman in vain try to stop the mob's cruelties and is slaughtered while finally the fool expresses all the sorrows - shows that this scene was not meant as a simplified "revolutionary" or heroic tale of the people, it rather shows a mob seduced - in-between rival oppressors.

MORE ON THE MUSIC BACKGROUND. How could Musorgskij at a relatively young age come up with this moving, complex music? His opera Boris Godunov was first allowed to be performed in 1874 (and Musorgskij died already in 1881, at age 42). The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg. It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece.

Some enabling aspects may be his own dedicated creating and his particular teacher in a creative milieu with a handful of composing friends. As far as I have read, Musorgskij did not travel much but devoted himself to music composition (and alcohol), perhaps not surprising because his family went bankrupt and he also met much skepticism among his music contemporaries. See for example, Andras Batta (2001) Opera, p. 404.

Musorgskij's TEACHER. Although taking piano lessons from his early boyhood, Musorgskij had no full classical education. However, he was regarded as an eminent pianist, and eventually (from 1857), he started to study composition with his friend Mily Balakhirev (or Balakirev), who is regarded as the founder of the Five, a handful of composers, and its new Russian music school.

According to a Wikipedia article, I found this passage (courtesy to Wikipedia, link here):

In conjunction with critic and fellow nationalist Vladimir Stasov, in the late-1850s and early 1860s Balakirev brought together the composers now known as The Five—the others were Alexander Borodin, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. For several years, Balakirev was the only professional musician of the group; the others were amateurs limited in musical education but possessing enormous potential. He imparted to them his musical beliefs, which continued to underlie their thinking long after he left the group in 1871, and encouraged their compositional efforts. While his methods could be dictatorial, the results of his influence were several works which established these composers' reputations individually and as a group. He performed a similar function for Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky at two points in the latter's career—in 1868-9 with the fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet and in 1882-5 with the Manfred Symphony.
As a composer, Balakirev finished major works many years after he had started them; he began his First Symphony in 1864 but completed it in 1897. The exception to this was his oriental fantasy Islamey for solo piano, which he composed quickly and remains popular among virtuosos. Often, the musical ideas normally associated with Rimsky-Korsakov or Borodin originated in Balakirev's compositions, which Balakirev played at informal gatherings of The Five. However, his slowness in completing works for the public robbed him of credit for his inventiveness, and pieces that would have enjoyed success had they been completed in the 1860s and 70s made a much smaller impact.

COMPLEX CREATIONS. According to several sources, Boris Godunov, among major operas, shares with Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlos (1867) the distinction of having a complex creative history and the greatest wealth of alternative material. The composer created two versions—the Original Version of 1869, which was rejected for production by the Imperial Theatres, and the Revised Version of 1872, which received its first performance in 1874 in Saint Petersburg, according to Wikipedia. These versions constitute two distinct conceptions, not two variations of a single plan. It is noteworthy that the Met version seeks back to much of the original version while also including scenes from the second one. Thus, it became an approximately 4,5 hours opera but I really enjoyed also the length - of a magic evening. Many seems to agree with this rich experience of "original Boris".