When Prince Shuisky recounts to Tsar Boris Godunov the final moments of the infant Tsarevich Dmitri, he hauntingly depicts the child laying in his crib, clutching a toy. It is specifically a spinning top – Волчо́к (Volchok) – a description only present in Mussorgsky’s original 1869 libretto and not in his 1872 revision. Directing the original version of the opera, Richard Jones seizes on that spinning top as a motif, a reenactment of the tsarevich’s murder replayed in slow motion, lit in sickly green. It clearly implicates Boris, gnawing away at his conscience, his mental state spiralling just like the child’s toy.
This is the third run of Jones’ Royal Opera 2016 Boris Godunov staging, revived here by Ben Mills and conducted by Mark Wigglesworth. Every single performance of it – 14 and counting – has starred Sir Bryn Terfel as Boris. The Welsh knight dons the title role like a comfortable old dressing gown, completely inside the tsar’s psyche. His attention to the text is still superb, his acting magnetic, wracked with guilt from the start, terrified in his hallucinations, magnificent in his death scene. Arguably, Terfel’s craggy bass-baritone has never been ideally suited to the role, lacking true bass authenticity. Last night it sounded as rugged as ever, sometimes with a sense of hurling out top notes and hoping for the best, although this rather suits Mussorgsky’s gritty vision.
The current cast includes two potential pretenders to Terfel’s crown. Adam Palka’s Pimen has all the bass gravitas Terfel lacks, dragging the monk’s giant chronicle like a great burden and intoning his account of the tsarevich’s murder with sepulchral tone. Alexander Roslavets’ wilder bass suited the rascally Varlaam, whipping up a storm in his song about Ivan the Terrible’s siege of Kazan, forming a witty double act with Alasdair Elliott’s spoon-playing Missail. Susan Bickley’s bustling innkeeper further enlivened this scene near the Lithuanian border.
In his Royal Opera debut, tenor Jamez McCorkle didn’t completely convince as Grigory, the opportunistic monk with designs on the throne, his voice lacking a little heft. As the slippery Shuisky, John Daszak offered a penetrating voice, rather than the usual wheedling tenor, as he foments rebellion. As Boris’ henchman Shchelkalov, Andrii Kymach impressed with his dark baritone. Mingjie Lei’s Yuródivyy (Holy Fool) lacked some of the requisite plangency, even if he caught the persecuted character’s physical tics well.
The Royal Opera Chorus – boosted by 38 extra chorus members – sang their hearts out, wailing and rejoicing and pleading for bread in Jones’ direction with equally mechanical gestures. Treble Robert Berry-Roe sang confidently as the tsar’s son, Fyodor, who is delivered by Shuisky, in the staging’s dying moments, into the hands of McCorkle’s murderous Pretender, history about to repeat itself as the curtain falls. Jones’ staging has grown on me, although I still hanker for the 1872 revision, with its sumptuous Polish act.
It was great to see Wigglesworth (in his first appearance here since the 2023 Hansel and Gretel) return to the Covent Garden pit. Steeped in Russian repertoire, he really dug into Mussorgsky’s earthy orchestration, which paints the lower strings in rich oils. The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House responded vividly, the brass on powerful form (occasionally smothering the singers) and the woodwinds relishing the joke of Varlaam stutteringly reading the arrest warrant. Wigglesworth’s pacing was unerring, allowing the score to breathe more than Antonio Pappano previously. It does mean the estimated 2 hours running time (with no interval) on the RBO’s website is wide of the mark by a good 20 minutes though, not helped by the fact that this show has never gone up remotely on time.
This review was updated to reflect the fact that Mark Wigglesworth's latest Royal Opera engagement was actually Hansel and Gretel in 2023 and not the 2021 Clemenza.
