Inside, there was a packed audience, eager to listen to Russian music sung by some excellent Russian singers and French ones too.
The title role, Boris was Alexey Tikhomirov, a geant, with a deep voice, lots of brassy colours, a rather unique type of voice which avoided the cavernous effects of some Russian voices. He was magnificient to look at and to follow in his two tremendous long monologues (nearly monologues at the Coronation and even more at the end which is nearly all his). I came because I was ignorant of this opera except for some arias I had listened to on the radio and was happy to watch in a very lively and sombre setting, a unique one which changed slightly each time when it had to be either the Kremlin, or Saint Basil or the Lithuanian frontier post, or the monastery. I was fascinated by Boris and his stature, he made his last scene so convincing, departing from his beloved son and seeing visions of the young prince Dimitri dying in his blood. These nightmarish visions and his guilt, almost like Macbeth, drive him to maddness, then to death: the acting there was breathtaking, the orchestra had all the violence of the situation with very asian tunes which surprised me.
When Boris at his last whisper dropped dead, flat on the stage, there was dead silence in the audience and a big wooden noise of his fall... I do not think I had witnessed such a fall before.
We clapped a lot because as often in Marseille, we were pleased with the cast, the setting and costumes, really colourful when showing the wealth of the Tsar (golden material and lots of decorations, painted walls like I saw all at Saint Basil), bluish and greyish rags for the plebians, so poor and hungry.
It was always lively with lots of members of the chorus and the young singers of the Maîtrise who are really good and well trained. The ensembles were outsatanding. The audience kept the singers for a long time at the bows.Nicolas Courjal who sang the monk Pimen was also excellent and moving. His aria has a catching cantilena I enjoyed a lot.
The conductor Paolo Arrivabeni chose the original version: the Modeste Moussorski one, apparently nearer to traditional music and more violent. The seven stagings went dramatically crescendo and it had been a great matinée at the opera, unsusual, unique.
Opéra en 7 tableaux
Livret de Modeste MOUSSORGSKI
d'après la pièce d'Alexandre POUCHKINE et l'Histoire de l’État russe
de Nikolaï Mikhaïlovitch KARAMZIN, basé sur la version de 1869, révision Michael ROT
Dernière représentation à l'Opéra de Marseille, le 25 octobre 1987
PRODUCTION OPÉRA ROYAL DE WALLONIE
Direction musicale Paolo ARRIVABENI
Mise en scène / Décors Petrika IONESCO
Lumières Patrick MÉEÜS
Xénia Ludivine GOMBERT
Fiodor Caroline MENG
La Nourrice / L'Hôtesse Marie-Ange TODOROVITCH
Boris Godounov Alexey TIKHOMIROV
Pimène Nicolas COURJAL
Gregori / Dimitri Jean-Pierre FURLAN
Chouisky Luca LOMBARDO
Varlaam Wenwei ZHANG
L'Innocent Christophe BERRY
Andrei Tchelkalov Ventseslav ANASTASOV
Missail Marc LARCHER
Nikitch / Officier de Police Julien VÉRONÈSE
Mityukha Jean-Marie DELPAS
Orchestre et Chœur de l’Opéra de Marseille
Maîtrise des Bouches-du-Rhône
Le spectacle BORIS GODOUNOV se jouera SANS entracte.
Photo ©DR
