Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov.(Video Recording Review)

MUSSORGSKY: Boris Godunov Avdeyeva; Nelepp, Khanaev, Kozlovsky, Pirogov, Mikhailov, Krivchenia; Orch. and Ch. of the Bolshoi, Nebolsin. VAI DVD 4253, color, subtitled, 108 rains.

Veteran filmmaker Vera Stroeva, who would also helm a Khovanshchina in 1959, provided scenario and direction for this lavish color film of Boris from 1954, with almost comically literal-minded yet impressive, touching scenic detail and scope (like the initial model of Moscow in 1598). Despite the Stalinist grandiosity, Stroeva makes effective choices, her study of Sergei Eisenstein's work visible in almost every frame. She curs away to Boris inside the monastery as the crowd beseeches him to accept the crown; a split Kromy Forest scene bookends Boris's death scene. Don't use just this version to learn (still less to teach) Boris, but Vasily Nebolsin's orchestra and the strong cast, in good sound, provide considerable excitement. Visually, the DVD merely reproduces the decent 1984 Corinth Films video release.

Alexander Pirogov sings beautifully, making a dignified and very human Boris, a part he first sang at the Bolshoi at thirty in 1929 and developed into a specialty. Georgii Nelepp looks very mature for the twenty-year-old Grigori/Dmitri (who here escapes across the Lithuanian border on horseback)--but what a thrilling tenor! ...