Hollowed out: Boris Godunov at ROH
Boris Godunov
Royal Opera
Royal Opera House
Balcony B6, £12, upgraded to Stalls Circle C79
19 June 2019
ROH page
I feel I’ve not had much luck with Royal Opera conductors recently. I know Boris Godunov to be a magnificent piece and even this time it has leached into my bones and ruled my waking moments. Yet this first night of the first revival of Richard Jones’s 2016 production was made extremely hard work by Marc Albrecht’s Italianate tempos, adding great rallentandos when the music should be fervent, making a structureless mire of the long speech-rhythmic soliloquies, and in general loose where he needs to be tight, rushed where he needs to be methodical and reactive where he needs to be strategic. Two hours shouldn’t feel this long, especially not when in the company of wonderful music and what is usually a very fine opera orchestra.
Albrecht’s Boris doesn’t help. I can understand Jones wanting Bryn Terfel originally, and I can’t deny his whole-hearted, bodily commitment to acting this meaty and difficult role. But, more so now than in 2016, he lacks the vocal authority to make Boris speak, and in addition to the disappointment that brings it also undermines the articulacy of his acting. The two cannot be separated, less so in this role than perhaps any other. Even in the distinctive brand of Englishness a Jones production always inhabits, Terfel’s hoarse and quiet Boris falls short of the Royal Opera’s claims to world-class excellence. It is so interesting to hear the shorter, earlier version of this opera rather than the composer’s final statement, but we have yet to see a Boris who meets its demands.
Ain Anger as Pimen was the highlight of the 2016 run, and I felt his absence – which is not to say Matthew Rose, always a favourite in my book, does not do an excellent job; but with his reedy bass, so classy in English repertory, he sets a lower bar. Sam Furness is an interesting alternative Holy Fool to 2016’s Andrew Tortise; as with his performance as the Novice in Billy Budd earlier this year there’s an impressive volume and depth to his sound, but I wonder if it is a touch too heroic for the plaintive music of the Fool. Boris Pinkhasovich, the only native Russian speaker of the cast, is disappointing as Shchelkalov, looking and sounding a little lost and several steps down from the sinister slipperiness of John Graham Hall in the premiere. The rest of the cast remains more or less the same, David Butt Philip perfect in Jones’s conception of the False Dmitry, and the double act of John Tomlinson and Harry Nicoll as Varlaam and Missail having more fun than probably anyone else on stage or in the audience.
I think I’m right to focus on the music and singers, but I think a part of my problem rests with finding Jones’s production much simpler than my memories of 2016. I wonder if its essential gimmick – the wicked murder of the young prince played out over and over above the stage – once got doesn’t deliver much more than it says on the tin. That said, there are still moments that I feel sure would work better in different contexts: the front-on choruses, a great idea if the musical structure is there to support it; the static, still space created for Boris, perfect if the Boris has the singing chops to make it happen; the machinator Shchelkalov lurking everywhere around the stage, great for a sophisticated singer-actor. But without the hard expertise where it’s needed, these gestures fall flat.
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