The HOT Take Abroad Pt. 3 – Boris Godunov

The BBC Proms is one of the world’s biggest music festivals, with over 70 concerts in 2 months, most of which take place at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

On Saturday, Prom number 2 was a concert performance of Mussorgsky’s epic opera, Boris Godunov, by the Royal Opera House.  As with HOT’s recent concert performance, the chorus and orchestra were onstage throughout, with the soloists entering and exiting according to the score.  Since this production had already been performed fully staged at the Royal Opera House, the soloists were in costume.

Boris Godunov

The vast scale of the Royal Albert Hall was very much suited to Mussorgsky’s great dramatic work, with a full-voiced chorus of 80, and peals of bells in the upper gallery.  The title role was superbly sung by the renowned Welsh baritone, Bryn Terfel, who managed to bring both majesty and pathos to the role. The rest of the cast was equally divided between Russian and British singers, with excellent singing all round, particularly from John Graham Hall (Prince Shuisky) and Andrii Goniukov (Varlaam).  The conductor was Sir Antonio Pappano, Music Director of the Royal Opera since 2002, and one of the world’s finest opera conductors. I had the privilege of working with him several times in Scotland in the 1990’s. His mastery of the score kept the music flowing evenly, with huge climaxes as well as beautifully intimate moments, over the 2 hours and fifteen minutes of the piece, which was performed without intermission.

The previous evening we had seen a delightful and lavish production of Jerome Kern’s Showboat at the New London Theatre, with an immensely talented cast, and bursting with great tunes!  Variety is the spice of life!