Thread by @david_m_wagner

Sirius (Met Channel, 355) is livecasting the season’s first performance of BORIS GODUNOV.

2/ This year @MetOpera is doing the so-called “original version,” meaning w/o Act III, the “Polish Act.” This is defensible as post-pandemic economizing: no shelling out for a lead mezzo to sing Marina, nor for a baritone for Rangoni the Jesuit; in fact, you can get by w a new or

3/ 2nd-rate tenor for Grigori/False Dimitri, bc w/o the Polish Act he’s in only 3 scenes and is not the lead character in any of them. Besides containing some of Mussorgsky’s best music, the Polish Act situates Boris’s psychodrama within a larger European context and

4/ makes it more epic. - I am not convinced that any house, ever, chooses this “original version,” w/o Polish Act, as a pure artistic choice. It’s about presenting BORIS on the cheap. And that’s better than not presenting it at all - but not as good as presenting the whole thing.

5/ Btw, the source material, a play by Pushkin, contains Polish Act material - tho Mussorgsky, adding his Polish Act at the (correct) insistence of the Bolshoi Opera, invented the character of Rangoni. The historical Rangoni was a lay nobleman repping the Holy See in Poland, but

6/ from Mussorgsky’s slavophil viewpoint, he *had* to be a Jesuit 🤣

7/ Well, no Marina or Rangoni tonight, and - remember what I said about tenors willing to sing Grigori in this truncated version, where most of his music and *all* of its good parts are cut? Well tonight we bring you the Met debut of a tenor who middle name is Butt. …

8/ If Mr. David Butt Philip sings well, I’ll make it up to him by letting you know. Meanwhile, welcome to Estonian bass Ain Anger making an overdue Met debut as Brother Pimen. Also, Va. Gov’s School for the Arts (Norfolk) grad Ryan Speedo Green, who has done smaller roles here,

9/ will take a star turn as Varlaam, a role he has also done in Vienna.

8/ As when this production (with Polish Act) was new in 2010, we have again René Pape kicking it as Boris.

Based on the Chudhov Monastery Scene (in which the star is Brother Pimen) Mr. Philip as Grigori sounds ok.

9/ Speedo rocked Varlaam’a “Siege of Khazan” drinking song (another element that makes BORIS an epic: that siege was then recent history), and got a hand for it. He continues to bill himself as a bass-baritone, which is kind of a keep-options-open move by American basses. Some…

10/ of them should just embrace their bass destiny: Speedo; also John Relyea.

11/ So there *are* differences in this version apart from the absence of the Polish Act:
*Chudhov Monastery: different orchestration behind Grigori’s part
*Inn Scene: no song about the swan; Innkeeper passes musically unnoticed
*Tsar’s Apartment Scene: substantially different

12/ from any version I know.

Not better, just different: one can hear why Mussorgsky made changes beyond what the Bolshoi demanded. Mystery to me why his mature decisions shd be subordinated to his first ones. But, BORIS remains an adventure.

13/ Other Met debuts tonight: bass Aleksey Bogdanov as Shchelkalov, Ukrainian tenor Maxim Paster as Prince Shuisky; Erika Baikoff as Tsarevna Xenia.

14/ Now come on, those creeping “footsteps” that begin the St. Basil’s Cathedral Scene *demand* to follow the sweet tunes and lush orchestration of the Polish Act finale. They say, “OK enough fun, we’re back in Russia now.”

15/ My favorite recording of BORIS is the one w Martti Talvela and a Polish orchestra, chorus, and conductor (Jerzy Semkow). The joke at our place is that this recording’s booklet labels Act I, II, and IV as the “Russian Acts.”