Nastoyashchiy russkiy
What a privilege! What a pleasure. Owing to technology I can watch 'foreign' language art films and theatre productions in the comfort of my home. On DVD.
Russian works performed by Russian artists have a depth, breadth and scope that elsewhere can hardly be emulated.
My then longtime companion Afrikaans actor Ernst Eloff was not partial to the music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky until a friend forced him to listen to a recording by a Russian orchestra with a Russian conductor.
I'm besotted with Russian music and literature. It's the country that gave the world playwright Anton Chekhov, authors Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy Pushkin, Solzhenitsyn et al. And composers Rachmaninov, Prokof'iev, Stravinsky.. And in this case Modest Musorgsky.
I have his Boris Godunov on DVD in a Gran Teatre del Licau production directed by Willy Decker, conducted by Sebastian Weigle with Finnish powerhouse bass Matti Salminen in the title role. It's a 'modern' look at the work with the tsar an almost Hitler-like figure and it's excellent.
However. the 1990 production of the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg is an exact copy of the 1983 Andrey Tarkovsky direction of the opera. Need I say more? Robert Lloyd reprises the title role. He slots in with the Russians perfectly. His Boris is tormented; he knows he has an insurmountable task to rule a country. When two kids want to touch his coat in adoration, he flees in a panic. Brilliant. Brilliant.
From the included booklet - In rehearsal: "First meeting of the chorus. Andrei talks about the crowd - the Russian people. How they will crawl out of holes filled with the rubbish of history. Their movement is to be that of fog: slow and heavy. Then, when they plead with Boris to become their Tsar, their movement should be like rye in the field."
That says it all. A superb, supreme film director at work on the stage, subtly creating Rembrandt- and Hieronymus Bosch-like pictures, masterfully lighting them and drawing extraordinary performance from all the singer-actors. Valery Gergiev, stalwart of Russian conductors, leads the Kirov Orchestra and Chorus.
Yes, I'm swooning. 10/10
What a privilege! What a pleasure. Owing to technology I can watch 'foreign' language art films and theatre productions in the comfort of my home. On DVD.
Russian works performed by Russian artists have a depth, breadth and scope that elsewhere can hardly be emulated.
My then longtime companion Afrikaans actor Ernst Eloff was not partial to the music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky until a friend forced him to listen to a recording by a Russian orchestra with a Russian conductor.
I'm besotted with Russian music and literature. It's the country that gave the world playwright Anton Chekhov, authors Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy Pushkin, Solzhenitsyn et al. And composers Rachmaninov, Prokof'iev, Stravinsky.. And in this case Modest Musorgsky.
I have his Boris Godunov on DVD in a Gran Teatre del Licau production directed by Willy Decker, conducted by Sebastian Weigle with Finnish powerhouse bass Matti Salminen in the title role. It's a 'modern' look at the work with the tsar an almost Hitler-like figure and it's excellent.
However. the 1990 production of the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg is an exact copy of the 1983 Andrey Tarkovsky direction of the opera. Need I say more? Robert Lloyd reprises the title role. He slots in with the Russians perfectly. His Boris is tormented; he knows he has an insurmountable task to rule a country. When two kids want to touch his coat in adoration, he flees in a panic. Brilliant. Brilliant.
From the included booklet - In rehearsal: "First meeting of the chorus. Andrei talks about the crowd - the Russian people. How they will crawl out of holes filled with the rubbish of history. Their movement is to be that of fog: slow and heavy. Then, when they plead with Boris to become their Tsar, their movement should be like rye in the field."
That says it all. A superb, supreme film director at work on the stage, subtly creating Rembrandt- and Hieronymus Bosch-like pictures, masterfully lighting them and drawing extraordinary performance from all the singer-actors. Valery Gergiev, stalwart of Russian conductors, leads the Kirov Orchestra and Chorus.
Yes, I'm swooning. 10/10