Metropolitan Opera – Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov. March 12, 2011.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center – Balcony Seat F22 ($100).

Story. This is based on Pushkin’s account of Godunov who became Tsar of Russia in 1598. He does that by killing his brother’s son (thus heir to the kingdom) but remains haunted by the act. Meanwhile, a monastery novice Grigory escapes from the monastery, assumes the identity of the tsarevich Dimitri, assembles an army, and marches onto Moscow. He is cheered on by the Polish royalty Marina Mnishek who wants to ascend to the Russian throne. Godunov dies and names his son as the heir. The opera ends with the crowd getting unruly and marching towards Moscow, with the Holy Fool lamenting Russia’s uncertain fate.

Conductor – Pavel Smelkov; Boris Godunov – Rene Pape, Pimen, a monk – Mikhail Petrenko, Grigory, a monk, later pretender to the Russian throne – Aleksandrs Antonenko, Marina – Ekaterina Semenchuk, Holy Fool – Andrey Popov.

This performance was going to be conducted by Valery Gergiev, who was ill. Pavel Smelkov was the substitute conductor. He is on the 25-member roster of Met conductors, but I don’t recall ever seeing one of his concerts. I wonder if they have understudies in opera performances. I can’t imagine this long and rather complex opera be in everyone’s repertoire. The cast is was a nearly all-“Russian” affair, the notable exception being the German-born bass Rene Pape who sang the role of Godunov.

The Program Notes mentions that one has to put the opera in the context of history to fully appreciate it. For instance, we didn’t see the murder of Dimitri, and while the story ends with Godunov’s death, we do not know if his son ends up getting overturned. I am okay with that, indeed sometimes one has to do quite a bit of research; oftentimes just seeing it would leave you in the fog. No amount of research, however, will prepare me enough to understand how Russian names are put together so I can clearly tell who is who in the cast.

Act III was put in by Mussorsky after the rest of the opera was ready because people wanted to have a major female role in the work. Thus we get the Polish royalty Marina and the catholic priest who urges her to marry Dimitri and convert Russian to the Catholic faith. I am not sure this 45-minute addition does anything to the opera or the story. I would much rather see more context added to the story, or have the opera cut short by 45 minutes altogether.

What is most unfair in this whole thing is that historians nowadays don’t think Godunov had anything to do with the death of Dimitri. I guess he finally got “rehabitated” after several hundred years.

The singing was generally fine, and very clear from where we were seated. My only quibble is with Semenchuk (singing the role of Marina) who ended her phrases a bit too abruptly. (Note: I may have confused her with someone else, in which case my apologies.)

The staging is generally sparse. But they do use a large chorus, perhaps close to 150 members. As the Program Notes indicates, the Russian people were not put into the best light. They were like sheep that were easily led this way or the other. We are talking about late 16th and early 17th centuries here, this perhaps should be expected. And this still happens today.

This is billed as one of the most important Russian operas. I have seen limited number of them, so I can’t really agree or disagree. However, I certainly found “War and Peace” much more compelling. Yesterday I bought tickets to see Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades”, so I will have another point of comparison. We saw Onegin quite a few years ago, and I forget how I felt about it. Also, this opera reminds me of Macbeth, who also came to power via murder and eventually went crazy. Macbeth's character was better developed, and we could see how his guilt eventually got to him.

The opera ended at about 4:30 pm, so we had time to walk down to Carnegie Deli for an early dinner (Pastrami for me, Corned Beef for Anne) before we headed home.

The New York Times review was for a performance last October although it was for the same cast. Evidently there was a last minute change in the director, who featured rather prominently in the review.