Boston Globe, MA
June 12 2005

Catch a rising czar
After nearly 300 years, the Baroque opera ‘Boris Goudenow’ makes its
premiere

By Lawrence A. Johnson, Globe Correspondent | June 12, 2005

In 1710 in Boston, theatrical performance was banned, a legacy of the
city’s Puritan origins. Meanwhile, 3,631 miles away in Hamburg,
Johann Mattheson was anticipating the opening of his opera ”Boris
Goudenow,” a work he believed would crown his reputation as one of
the most innovative composers in Europe.

Mattheson was then highly influential, a mentor to the young Handel
and a composer for the Hamburg Opera. ”Boris Goudenow,” chronicling
a Russian czar’s ascension to the throne amid political and romantic
intrigues, was designed to be populist in style, with a flamboyant,
spectacular production.

But for reasons unknown, that performance never took place. Nor was
”Boris” heard the following year, or the year after that — or ever.
Not only was Mattheson’s greatest opera never performed, most of his
music ultimately vanished, and he became known only to scholars as an
author of arcane musical treatises.

This week, Mattheson will have belated vindication, as 18th-century
Hamburg and 21st-century Boston come together in the Boston Early
Music Festival’s presentation of ”Boris Goudenow,” opening Tuesday
night at the Cutler Majestic Theatre.

Festival artists and musicians have been working for two years to
bring off this world premiere, delayed nearly three centuries. And
according to festival artistic directors Stephen Stubbs and Paul
O’Dette, Mattheson’s opera ranks as one of the major unearthed
musical treasures of the last century.

”I think ‘Boris’ is a real masterpiece. It’s an embarrassment of
riches,” says O’Dette. ”It goes from one brilliant aria to the next
to the next. He really knew how to write great, memorable tunes that
you cannot get out of your head.”

The score covers a wide range of expression, from soaring arias for
three pairs of lovers to the Bruegel-like low comedy of the servant
Bodga. Throw in some lavish costumes, dashing swordplay, and dance
interludes, and Boston audiences could be in for a very lively night
— one far removed from Mussorgsky’s magnificent if gloomy take on
the same Russian czar.

It is ”a real show,” Stubbs says. Think ”Les Miz” with boyar hats.

”If people come I’m sure they will be delighted and entertained and
amused,” he adds. ”There’s a huge audience out there waiting to
enjoy this. They just don’t know it yet.”

Timely exhumations
Under the artistic leadership of Stubbs and O’Dette, the Boston Early
Music Festival has been engaged in a groundbreaking series of Baroque
opera revivals in recent years. Among previous works mounted are
Rossi’s ”Orfeo,” Cavalli’s ”Ercole Amante,” and Conradi’s
”Ariadne,” the last of which has just been released on the cpo
label.

Handel, of course, is the paradigm for resuscitated Baroque vocal
music, with several of his long-languishing operas achieving mainstay
status in the last two decades. More recently, Handel’s magnificent
”Gloria,” authenticated in 2001, has leapt onto the playlist of
every Baroque-friendly high soprano.

Those reviving Mattheson’s opera believe ”Boris Goudenow” has the
potential to make a similar impact as a unique and inspired work.

Mattheson’s volatile music doesn’t sound like any of his
contemporaries, they note. ”Some of the harmonies you just don’t
believe because you haven’t seen anything like it before 1840,” says
O’Dette. ”We look at the page and think, ‘Can that really be right?’
It’s an incredibly rich harmonic language.”

Although many early-music specialists appear intrigued by ”Boris,”
some remain more cautious in their assessments. ”You have to wonder
with a lot of these people whether their works have fallen into
obscurity justly,” said Tess Knighton, editor of the scholarly
journal Early Music. She notes that she has not yet seen a complete
”Boris” score but says she hasn’t been overwhelmed by the composer’s
other works.

”What I’ve seen of Mattheson’s music doesn’t seem to be terribly
exciting,” she says. ”He doesn’t strike one as being an absolute
genius. But you never know. There’s always a possibility that this
may be his masterpiece.”

Other skeptics may ask: If Mattheson’s opera is so terrific, why has
it taken so long to be discovered? The answer is that ”Boris” eluded
recent Baroque excavations because the opera, along with much of
Mattheson’s music, disappeared behind the Iron Curtain after World
War II.

Just before the firebombing of Hamburg in July 1943, workers at the
Hamburg Library removed the most valuable material to a castle
outside the city for safekeeping. The castle was in Soviet-controlled
territory after the war, and the Russians took the cache of
manuscripts to the Soviet Union. Somehow the crates turned up in
Armenia, and they remained there until 1998, when, in return for
German financial aid to Armenia, they were returned to Germany —
including the long-lost score of ”Boris Goudenow.”

In addition to bolstering Mattheson’s status, this production is
significant for illuminating Hamburg Opera’s brief shining moment in
the late 17th and early 18th centuries — a time when it was an
epicenter of theatrical daring, a musical world of high beauty and
earthy humor.

”In a Darwinian way, it really lost the race,” says Stubbs.
”Hamburg Opera made a big attempt over a period of 50 years to put
German opera on the map, and in the end failed due to various causes
including economic collapse. But in the meantime they created this
pretty important body of work that nobody knows anything about —
operas by Keiser, Telemann, and Mattheson.”

The reason ”Boris” was never performed in 1710 remains murky, though
contemporary politics may have played a part. And Mattheson’s star
did not remain high for long. Around 1720, the composer began
experiencing hearing problems and, like Beethoven a century later,
eventually went completely deaf. He gave up composing, donated all
his scores to the library, and spent the rest of his life writing
about the musical world in which he could no longer actively
participate.

A Boris for Boston
Unlike the maligned, unhinged monarch of Mussorgsky’s ”Boris
Godunov,” Mattheson’s Boris is a dynamic, politically savvy ruler, a
”New Russia” Enlightenment figure reflecting Peter the Great’s
contemporaneous activities.

In searching for a singer to play the role, Stubbs and colleagues
made a second ”Boris” discovery. While in Russia auditioning about
two dozen of the Mariinsky Theatre’s most promising young artists,
they found their czar in Vadim Kravets.

”The first guy who walked through the door was this towering,
unbelievable young bass-baritone,” Stubbs recalls. ”We all just
immediately said, ‘That’s Boris!’ ”

In addition to a reportedly glorious voice, Kravets embodies the
spirit and power of the youthful czar. ”This is not the dying old
czar,” says Stubbs. ”This is the young ambitious Boris. He just
emanates strength and ambition, and the musicality and voice are
first class. And having Boris sing German with a Russian accent just
adds to the character.”

Appropriately for a work that has taken nearly three centuries to
reach the public, the opera’s underlying moral is that steadfastness
and fidelity will win out in the end. That optimistic theme, along
with Mattheson’s vivid style, is likely to appeal to audiences,
O’Dette believes.

”We know that if we get people into the theater they will love this
piece,” he says. ”There’s drama and entertainment, and it combines
the best of grand opera with the best of the American musical
tradition.

”It really has populist appeal on a very, very high musical level.
That’s what makes this so exciting.”