It’s extraordinary how many works have been upstaged by the operas based upon them. Of none is this truer than those of Pushkin, whom the Russians regard as highly as we do Shakespeare or the Germans Goethe.
Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades are known to most of us primarily from Tchaikovsky’s operas, and Boris Godunov from Mussorgsky. Just how much we’ve been missing is apparent in Michael Boyd’s revelatory staging of the original 1825 Boris Godunov play in Adrian Mitchell’s verse adaptation. It’s a great coup for Sir Michael — the RSC artistic director’s valedictory production appears to be the play’s first professional staging here.
Mussorgsky’s cherry-picking from Pushkin’s 25 short scenes of those most suited for musical treatment — Boris’s self-torturing monologues, the Pretender’s courting of the Polish princess Maryna and the crowd scenes — has made it hard to believe there was more to be mined from the play.
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