Matti Salminen and Erik Halfvarson are both basses, and both known for their huge, round dark voices that have led them to build their careers around the role of the villain Hagen in Wagner's Götterdämmerung. Salminen takes the title role into his massive hands and delivers a thunderous performance, swinging between grim self-defeat and stark terror in the mad scenes. Halfvarson, as the monk, Pimen is the more emotionally stable of the two--his opening monologue is riveting. The two great basses finally confront each other in the Duma scene, now moved to the close of the opera.
This is Boris as Mussorgsky originally conceived it--seven tableaux clocking in at two and a half hours. In this production, there is no Polish act. Grigory's part is accordingly diminished. Princess Marina and the Jesuit, Rangoni are cut completely. Also cut out, the Kromy Forest scene--replaced here by the confrontation before St. Basil's. However, these cuts have their advantages. While Grigory (the appealing tenor Pär Lindskog) is reduced to a mere historical footbote against the grand drama of Boris, the shadowy schemes of Shuisky (the excellent Philip Langridge) now come to the fore.
Director Willy Decker has opted against the tradiitonal Russian look, choosing a quasi-fascist 20th century setting that opens with Boris in a well-cut business suit before he becomes tsar. The set consists of a wide open space dominated by an enormous, gilded wooden chair--which serves as scenery and blocking as well as the central image of the Russian throne. The seat is literally too big for any one man--perhaps that is the idea. The spare set gives the choristers plenty of space to move and act, allowing them to dominate this opera when the two great basses are not onstage.
