Boris Godunov, Bolshoy Theatre. 1954.

May 6, 2016 1:29 PM

Part 1. Part 2. Two hours and forty minutes of classic Russian opera, in over-the-top Soviet style, produced in the unsettled years between Stalin's death and Krushchev's Secret Speech. If you don't have the time, you can watch the eleven minute death scene (part 1 and part 2 - a truly operatic death), performed by Boris Christoff a couple of years later in London.

The first performances of the opera, in 1873, were received enthusiastically by everyone except the Imperial Family. "When the list of operas for the winter was presented to His Majesty the Emperor, he, with his own hand, was pleased to strike out Boris with a wavy line in blue pencil."

This is the smoother Rimsky-Korsakov version of Mussorgsky's opera, popular last century but mostly pushed out of the repertoire nowadays by one version or another of Mussorgsky's original score.

posted by clawsoon (3 comments total)

Enjoying Part 1 now; thanks for the post!
posted by languagehat at 2:56 PM on May 6, 2016

Where are moose and squirrel?
posted by ocschwar at 3:29 PM on May 6, 2016

That's Boris BADENOV, another classic role of Paul Frees, who I noted in another thread was a Great Orson Welles Impersonator. (why are so many threads dovetailing like that lately? Weird May.)
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:02 PM on May 6, 2016