This article should probably be entitled “The Score of Boris” or even “The Problem with the Score of Boris” because of all of the confusing issues involved in even speaking about the piece. To begin with, the composer himself created two versions: the first, in 1869, containing seven scenes; the second, in 1874, containing two additional scenes and small additions to the original seven. Although the version of 1874 met with great public acclaim, the critics (including his fellow composers in ‘the Five’) were unkind. They were particularly perplexed by the dark and rather somber orchestration of the score. Fifteen years after the composer’s death in 1881, his close friend Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov decided to take the score in hand and re-orchestrate it, brightening it considerably and ‘fixing’ many other rhythmic and structural details along the way. Rimsky ‘re-orchestrated’ his re-orchestration in 1908 for the impresario Serge Diaghilev who was introducing Russian music, opera and dance to the West. Following this all manner of composers and arrangers felt that they had carte blanche to try their own hand at ‘improving’ Mussorgsky’s work. They include Anatol Liadov, Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, Nikolai Cherepnin, Dmitri Shostakovich and Karl Rathaus. Mussorgsky’s own original score had to be rediscovered through trial and error in the 20th century until now when we find the 1869 version considered a viable, some say even preferable, alternative to all of the variants that now exist.
One of the things that Mussorgsky wanted to do with this opera was to capture in music the way real people express themselves, and in the same simple language ‘of the people’ in order to create a true national epic. Happily this wasn’t far from Pushkin’s intention in creating the verse play in the first place. Both artists wanted their work to not only be a reflection of a critical moment in Russian history; they wanted to create a vast canvas upon which to paint the national character in all its hues. The ‘people of Russia’ are a corporate identity in both the spoken drama and the opera, and they play a role as significant as Boris or any other principal character.
Vocally speaking it is remarkable how the melodic lines given to the characters (particularly Boris) portray the emotion in the text in an immediate, forceful way. Mussorgsky is never less than direct. This is especially true in Boris’ great monologue in Act II and his farewell and death at the end of the opera. It also leads to the false impression that there is no melody at all; repeated hearings of the score will dispel this myth. But Boris Godunov is definitely closer to arioso than to aria, a lyric style somewhere between recitative and the flowering of true song. It is this semi-melodic style which pervades the more dramatic moments in the opera. Not that there aren’t pure songs in the work; there are. They will be heard in the scene at the inn and at the beginning of the second act where we hear children’s songs sprung from the composer’s sensitivity to Russian folk song.
In terms of balance one constantly feels that Mussorgsky is being careful to be sure that the text is always heard clearly above the orchestra which is only occasionally given the opportunity to fly on its own. The overall feel of the score is ‘dark’, with an emphasis on the lower ranged instruments of each orchestral section. That feeling is bolstered by the rather thick textures the composer creates in the movement of these lower ‘voices’ against each other throughout the score. This description is not unlike how a person would describe the sound of an all male Russian Orthodox choir during services: emphasis on darkness certainly, and with a sense of monumental space. We also feel intuitively that we are experiencing something akin to Wagnerian time, time suspended and allowed to roll out at a rather slow pace (it is remarkable that one feels this whether listening to the two-hour 1869 version or the much longer 1874 version!)
The music, as in any great opera, matches the story, the atmosphere and the characters perfectly. It can be described as direct, immediate in its impact, somber, sustained, even ‘blunt’. All of these qualities are innately ‘Russian’. But even the first audiences that experienced the work were much more used to German, French and Italian opera in their theatres. It was probably the stark difference between this score and the more ‘Western’ operas that were regularly performed in Russian theatres that accounts for the amount of critical disdain poured upon the work after its first performance. It is also perhaps the reason that Mussorgsky’s composer friends were so attentive to the score after his death, tinkering with it so that it put its best face forward to the public, almost apologizing for its directness and naïve genius. It can now stand on its own, without the redactions of well-meaning apologists, and elicit real affection from any lover of great opera.