Boris Goudenow, Boston Early Music Festival
By George Loomis
FT
June 17 2005 09:47
Opera-goers often encounter familiar subjects in diverse operatic
settings, but who would have thought a German composer would seize
on the saga of Boris Godunov 160 years before Mussorgsky? This shows
the resourcefulness of composers for Hamburg’s Goosemarket theatre,
a public opera house for which Johann Mattheson in around 1710 wrote
his Boris Goudenow, an opera that was never performed.
Long thought lost in the allied bombing of Hamburg, the score of
Mattheson’s Boris had in fact been relocated “for safe keeping”. As
with many musical treasures, however, the Red Army got there first. The
score resurfaced in the 1990s in Yerevan, Armenia, and now the biennial
Boston Early Music Festival gives its world premiere.
The subject does offer an appealing twist, but Mattheson’s Boris is
largely a run-of-the mill baroque opera driven by scheming lovers and
political intrigue. The most memorable scene comes when a chorus of
old men and children implore Boris to accept the throne, repeating
their entreaties to amusing effect each time the comic servant Bogda
tries to silence them. You could almost think Mattheson was satirising
Mussorgsky. But these Hamburg operas are curious works – throwbacks
to older Venetian operas in their blatant audience appeal, with many
short musical numbers in sound-bites and heavy, off-colour humour.
Mattheson, better known as a theorist than a composer, wrote
much engaging music for Boris, but composers such as Telemann and
Reinhard Keiser managed Hamburg’s peculiar requirements better. Lucy
Graham and Nils Niemann mastermind the lively stage action and David
Cockayne’s sets have a hint of old-style Bolshoi opulence. The young
Russian bass Vadim Kravers is impressive as Boris, though not yet
ready for Mussorgsky’s tsar. The other singers have the pleasant but
lightish voices early music attracts; among the lovers, the soprano
Nell Snaidas and the tenor Colin Balzer are especially good. Paul
O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs oversee the musical direction with verve
and scrupulous attention to detail.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress