Czar turn: Furlanetto's commanding portrayal adds power to Lyric's 'Boris Godunov'
The Russian tale of power politics is formidable
John von Rhein Classical music critic
November 8, 2011
Those who think opera has nothing in common with current political theater should pay particular attention to one scene in Lyric Opera's gripping revival of Mussorgsky's masterpiece, "Boris Godunov."
The despondent Russian czar, wracked with guilt over the regicide that put him on the throne, warns his young son Fyodor of the battle for supremacy among the ruling classes – "liars and rogues" who use the easily deluded rabble as pawns in a calculated game of power politics.
The contemporary resonances are uncanny.
"Boris Godunov" has come down to us in so many rewritten and prettified versions that we need to be reminded the composer got it right the first time around, with his original version of 1869. That was the version that returned to the Lyric repertory, in Stein Winge's admirable production, Monday night at the Civic Opera House.
The performance, dominated by Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto's formidable assumption of the title role, in his belated Lyric debut, drove home with compelling force Mussorgsky's meditation on assassination, conscience, intrigue and the corrupting effect of absolute power.
Lyric audiences were introduced to the original "Boris" in this same Winge staging in 1994, when Bruno Bartoletti, now Lyric's artistic director emeritus, conducted. Since then, the composer's initial version has overtaken all the others in opera houses around the world.
Bartoletti's advocacy has passed, along with his baton, to Andrew Davis, the company's current music director. It's Davis' first "Boris" and good enough for a maiden voyage into this greatest of Russian operas. He draws responsive playing from the orchestra to match the robust, deep-toned singing of Michael Black's 90-voice Lyric Opera Chorus, making the most of its crucial role as the oppressors and oppressed of late-16th-century Russian society.
Stage director Julia Pevzner draws strong performances as well from a large supporting cast that includes several company debuts. The San Francisco Opera-owned production, with sets by Goran Wassberg and costumes by Kari Gravklev, mirrors the raw-boned power of Mussorgsky's music, with its bare harmonies and stark orchestration.
This is a shorter, tougher, grittier "Boris" than the Rimsky-Korsakov revision familiar to most Lyric audience members. Missing is the so-called Polish act Mussorgsky added for his 1872 revision, which means there's no major female character and no love interest. Gone, too, is the grandly rousing finale, set in the Kromy Forest, where the victorious Pretender, Grigori, prepares to advance on Moscow.
The gains outweigh the losses. The version on view here is less of a grand historical pageant than a case study in the psychological disintegration of its protagonist. Although Boris is a devoted father who tries to be a just and wise ruler, he is brought down by the weight of his ambiguous complicity in the murder of the young czarevitch Dmitri, second son of Ivan the Terrible.
And Furlanetto has made this touchstone bass role his own. The qualities that make him a superb Verdi singer also make him a superb interpreter of the complex and contradictory anti-hero. He was the first Italian to sing the title role in St. Petersburg, Russia, and his portrayal has also graced the theaters of Milan, Venice and Vienna.
Nature may not have endowed Furlanetto with a big, black, Slavic-style bass in the Boris Christoff or Nicolai Ghiaurov mold – to cite two illustrious Borises from Lyric's past. Never mind. His formidable voice – full, even, effortlessly powerful, blessed with varied colorations -- combined with his skills as a singing actor to convey the czar's torment and downfall with stunning immediacy.
The rolling vocal authority he lavished on the czar's "public" scenes was achieved without bluster, just as the domestic scenes between Boris and his two beloved children, Fyodor (Emily Fons) and Xenia (Emily Birsan), were a triumph of finely sculpted legato phrases.
Such touches as the half-mad ruler's wrapping himself in a giant map of Russia at the end of the Hallucination Scene were bone-chilling. The final scene, in which the dying czar urged his son (and heir-apparent), to guard Russia's borders, seek justice and preserve the faith, also packed great vocal and dramatic punch. Although Furlanetto was denied Boris' traditional tumble down a flight of stairs, its absence jibed with the absence of melodrama in his portrayal.
The other standout in Monday's performance was Andrea Silvestrelli. The Lyric Opera veteran delivered the aged monk Pimen's two narratives with wonderfully grave dignity and a deep, booming bass that sounded as authentically Russian as that of Furlanetto.
Shuisky, the treacherous prince who plays on the czar's tormented conscience as he plots sedition, was firmly sung by Slovakian tenor Stefan Margita (debut), although he projected little of the character's oily deviousness. Croatian baritone Ljubomir Puskaric brought a healthy, meaty sound to his company debut as Tchelkalov, clerk of the Kremlin parliament.
Another fine Lyric debut came from Erik Nelson Werner as Grigori, the ambitious young monk who, as the pretender Dmitri, leads the plot to overthrow Boris. The American tenor's handling of the role's high tessitura was clear-voiced and intense, but never forced.
The scene in the inn was enlivened by the drunken ballad of the wandering monk Varlaam, heartily taken by bass Raymond Aceto. Another Lyric stalwart, tenor David Cangelosi, threw himself into the knockabout shtick of Varlaam's cohort, Missail.
There were sturdy contributions as well from Marianna Kulikova as the inn hostess, Jamie Barton as the nurse and Edward Mout as the Holy Fool, who got to lug around a symbolic, two-foot replica of an onion-domed Kremlin tower. The tenor, a Ryan Center alum, brought poignancy to the simpleton's lament for the afflictions of Mother Russia.
The minimalist set is a steeply-raked wooden platform rising up at the rear to reveal a series of trap doors and windows. Russian Orthodox banners and icons provide touches of color along with Duane Schuler's stark lighting, blood-red for the Hallucination Scene. The boyars are dressed in heavy, red-velvet robes and high Russian hats.
Because each of the seven scenes moves so quickly, it isn't always easy to sort out the narrative or the characters, which makes Francis Rizzo's surtitles very welcome indeed.
For Furlanetto's magnificent performance alone, this "Boris Godunov" is well worth catching.
Lyric Opera's "Boris Godunov" runs through Nov. 29 at the Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive; $34-$224; 312-332-2244, lyricopera.org.
jvonrhein@tribune.com
Copyright © 2011, Chicago Tribune Copied with permission from Lyric Opera. Photo: Lyric Opera
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