The NTR ZaterdagMatinee concert series at the Concertgebouw traditionally opens with an opera. This year it was a fiery performance of Modest Mussorgsky’s masterpiece Boris Godunov, conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado and with a practically faultless cast. Like Richard III, who probably did not have his two young nephews killed in the Tower of London, Boris Godunov is unlikely to have murdered the ten-year-old Dimitri, son of Ivan the Terrible. But rulers with blood-stained hands make for better plays. Mussorgsky based his opera on a play by Pushkin that spans Boris’ reign, from his coronation in 1598 to his death in 1605. Holding Russia’s welfare dear, Boris is persuaded to become tsar, but guilt gnaws at him even as he is crowned. Increasingly, he has to navigate political waters infested with duplicitous boyars and scheming Jesuits. Hunger and plague afflict his subjects, who are incited to revolt. While the dead Dimitri becomes a saintly figure who performs miracles, Boris falls prey to hallucinations. His successor is, ironically, the False Dimitri, a pretender who claims to be the murdered boy.
Boris Godunov comes in several versions and conflations, including a once dominant re-orchestrated and embellished version by Rimsky-Korsakov. Heras-Casado steered the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, their sister choir and the Flemish Radio Choir, all at peak performance, through the composer’s 1872 revised version, including his final edits from 1873. This meant the inclusion of the Polish scenes, in which the Pretender wins the hand of Marina, and the exclusion of Boris’ encounter with the Holy Fool. Also, Pimen the chronicler-monk referrred to Dimitri’s liquidation without narrating its details. From beginning to end, Heras-Casado had Mussorgsky's colossal score in a firm grasp, delivering a deeply passionate performance underpinned by the cleanest of rhythms. The coronation scene was everything it should be – climactic and overwhelming. But just as masterly was the way the orchestra unerringly punctuated the singers’ words, with doomy double basses and violins that rang like rapidly drawn daggers. Confoundingly versatile, the choir painted the changing moods of the crowd in the prologue and the final scene in vibrant colour.
The title role was entrusted to Alexander Tsymbalyuk, who has received rhapsodic reviews for his tortured tsar. He sang with wrenching sensitivity. His beautiful, youthful bass and physical restraint made his Boris both commanding and sympathetic. Although Mussorgsky’s vocal writing is shaped by conversational inflections, Tsymbalyuk never resorted to grunts, mumbles or yells. He sang the whole time, until the final hushed phrases of his death scene. The way he revealed consecutive layers of encroaching madness with each of his monologues was chillingly effective. No less imposing was the resonant, varnished bass of Ante Jerkunica as the hermit Pimen.