Paris.(opera productions)

In an interesting essay in the program notes of the Opera's new production, at the Bastille, of Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina, director Andrei Serban explains that Russians hold this work in higher esteem than either Bon's Godunov or Eugene Onegin. The eternal conflicts between state and religion and between belief and superstition, and the concept of the purification of the Russian soul, are all grist to the local psyche. The massive, unfinished score, with its fascinating mixture of the sacred and profane, was presented using Shostakovich's edition. Maestro James Conlon rose to the challenge of the work: Boris was the first opera he ever conducted, and Khovanshchina figured in his 1988 schedule at the Met. After a difficult dress rehearsal with only piano accompaniment, the orchestra and chorus responded magnificently on the first night (Dec. 10), capitalizing on the success of last year's production of Prokofiev's War and Peace. The Russian repertoire seems to be entering a golden period in Paris. Serban's production was simple and to the point. Only his very physical direction of the chorus suggested a more stylized production than the natural acting of the principals implied. The Act II meeting of the princes, where the essential questions of the future of holy Russia are discussed, was finely staged, a summit meeting of monumental tension. Richard Hudson's detailed costume designs seemed at odds with his rather bleak, foursquare sets. A suggestion of onion domes in Act I and some half-hearted flames in the final scene didn't make this the visual spectacle for which the designer seemed to be looking. A Cecil B. de Mille approach or a completely abstract concept would have been acceptable, but this was neither one nor the other, often suggesting a set from a Bolshoi tour in the 1960s.

However, this was a dream cast, in which several performances vied for superlatives. Pride of place must go to Anatoly Kotscherga as Dosifei. He led the Old Believers with dignity and authority, and he let loose a flood of sound to satisfy all but the sternest of critics, who might have noticed the odd moment of questionable intonation in what is a very personal vocal technique. Vladimir Ognovenko's base, lascivious Prince Ivan Khovansky was superbly sung and acted with a slimy intensity that his son Andrei seemed to have inherited. Vladimir Galouzine, remembered from his performances in Queen of Spades here last season, sang Andrei with his usual golden, stentorian high notes. He was not alone in fine tenor singing: Robert Brubaker, one of the few non-Russians in the cast, fresh from his triumph as the Dwarf in Zemlinsky's Der Zwerg, was a full-size Russian prince as Golitsyn. Brubaker once again showed that, for sheer stamina in high-lying music, he has few rivals.

Marfa is one of the great Russian mezzo-soprano roles, and Larissa Diadkova was not disappointing. Her voice has an easy lower extension of cavernous beauty, while her secure top is a degree lighter, which helped her make the character appear younger, so that for once the expression of her love for Andrei seemed credible and not ...