Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov is a five hour Russian opera about this bad guy Boris who kills the Tsar-in-training, the Tsarevich, and who then makes himself Tsar, and then spends the rest of the opera feeling guilty and a bit haunted about killing the Tsarevich. In the process Boris works hard to impoverish the already impoverished Russian people. Meanwhile, this guy Grigory (who is a trifle delusional) is claiming to be the dead Tsarevich, Dimitri, and is assembling an army to unseat Boris. Boris dies of advanced pangs of guilt (not about the Russian peasants but about his murder of the real Dimitri) and the fake Dimitri marches on Moscow, chaos reigns and the Court Holy Fool is left to lament Russia's "bleak, uncertain" fate.
This is not exactly a light opera. The music is heavy, the plot is heavy, the guilt is heavy. No irony or sense of tragedy to lighten the load. It is just heavy everywhere. Like with Wagner, there are no arias or the respite of recitatives in between. The music (like the river Volga) flows on relentlessly. Meanwhile this huge chorus of peasants keeps singing about how they need a new "daddy"-leader or alternatively, how they need to escape from the old ways or at least get some bread to eat. Just proves with regard to Mother Russia, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
One could say that this opera is about the act of convincing.
Boris spends the entire opera trying to convince himself that he should not feel guilty for killing Dimitri (unsuccessfully).
Boris also works hard to convince everyone else that he is legitimate and not a murderer. He never succeeds in convincing the Holy Fool. (There must be some moral here, i.e. if you can't even convince a fool...)
The real Dimitri convinces himself that he is dead (because he is) but never quite succeeds in convincing everyone else of this.
The fake Dimitri does convince himself and some other people that he is Dimitri (even though he is really Grigory).
The Polish Noble Lady Marina has an easy time convincing the fake Dimitri that she loves him and an even easier time convincing herself that she wants to be the Tsarina for all of the money, glory and power that it will bring her. (She should talk to Boris before making a final decision.)
The Polish Court Clergyman-in chief convinces absolutely no one that they should give up their pursuit of power or better yet do it all for the benefit of the Roman Catholic Church. He also fails to convince Marina that she should give in to his sexual advances.
The Holy Fool convinces everyone that he is a fool except for the audience who notice that he is the only one with any insight or wisdom.
The Court Police have a difficult time convincing the local peasantry that they should stop starving and be happy and cheer Tsar Boris.
The only certainty described in the opera is that the Russian peasants are hungry. Beyond that the Russian peasantry cannot even convince themselves of what they really want. Various other forces try to convince them of what to do about their hunger - stay with the old ways, look forward to new ways, support one leader or another. Meanwhile, the aristocratic boyars remain content. As I said, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Rene Pape as Boris, Aleksandrs Antonenko as Grigory (Dimitri), and Ekaterina Semenchuk as Marina convince us that they are powerful singers capable of the demanding roles in this opera. Valery Gergiev convinces us that he is an excellent conductor with a lot of stamina. Stephen Wadsworth convinces us that he can successfully stage an extremely complex opera. Andrey Popov also in good voice acts his part convincingly as the Holy Fool and utters underlying truths in the opera.
Advice to future viewers of this opera. Bring food.
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