Cheap Mussorgsky - Boris Godunov / Gergiev, Lloyd, Kirov (DVD) (Humphrey Burton) Price

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Customer Reviews of Mussorgsky - Boris Godunov / Gergiev, Lloyd, Kirov

Splendid production of a great opera.
This is an incredibly powerful production of one of the most poignant operas written. The cast is uniformly excellent, with Borodina as particularly fine Marina and Leiferkus as a remarkably sinister Rangoni. Lloyd's Boris is wonderfully acted, but his vocal performance is less than ideal--he is far too woofy in his singing. All other aspects of this performance are epic, and it establishes itself as the definitive version of the Mussorgksy orchestrations (the colors and lighting seem to match the music perfectly). Of particular note is the shattering St. Basil scene, one of the most remarkable scenes in all of opera. I highly recommend this DVD.

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A Musical Drama of Genius
Boris Godunov is perhaps the most intensely dramatic of all operas, showing the fall of a great man marred by his guilt in the struggle for power. That decline and fall is reflected in the rise of his nemesis, Gregory (the false Dmitri), who in history died shortly after seizing the crown at the hands of the ever conniving Shuisky. Beyond these personal tragedies and intrigues is deeper tragedy of the Russian people; they are forever suffering and misled. "Hungry people,cry" is the last line of the opera.

Mussorgsky's extraordinarily original music makes us live and feel every nuance of his drama. All roles are beautifully sung and powerfully acted. Lloyd is a brilliant Boris. I have never seen another Varlaam portray his role with such humor. Cardinal Rangoni hovers like a spider over Marina as he twists her to his will. Gergiev is a superb conductor of Mussorgsky's original orchestrations.

The staging is also extraordinary: Tarkovsky brilliantly uses the same basic set depict a myriad of scenes, enabling each to flow into the next seamlessly. Actors portray sculptures in the Polish garden scene, changing position to mark shifts of perspective. Nevertheless, some of his devices detract from the inner strength of the drama: Boris recoils in terror from the call for alms of poor in the coronation scene; the ghost of Dmitri (the rightful Tsar whom Boris had had murdered)hovers endlessly through the play. Worst of all: Tarkovsky has everyone fall down dead at the end of the Kromny scene, instead of marching out in false triumph behind the false Dmitri.

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Dreadful picture mars a valuable production
Although this is a valuable record of a memorable production (the great Russian film-maker Andrei Tarkovsky's only operatic staging), purchasers of the DVD should be warned that the picture quality is absolutely diabolical.

It was sourced from a PAL video recording originally made by the BBC, but for some reason (presumably US/Japanese sales) the DVD authors decided to convert it into the NTSC system, which plays havoc with the picture definition. Worse, the low-bitrate transfer has added digital artefacts galore, which get particularly blocky every time the camera pans or zooms.

Thankfully, the sound quality (either PCM stereo or DTS 5.1) is vastly superior, and the set as a whole is clearly a must for Mussorgsky fans and Tarkovsky completists - bad though the picture is, it never completely obliterates the virtues of the original. But it's a real pity that corporate greed has made this such a badly compromised product, as I can't see a separate PAL DVD appearing any time soon.