Metropolitan Opera Archives

The fifth performance this season of Mussorgsky's "Boris Godunov" at the Metropolitan Saturday night brought the return of Jerome Hines to the title role and of Charles Kullman as Prince Schuisky and the first appearances of Fernando Corena as Varlaam and Joan Wall as Feodor.

Despite the regal height of his frame and the sonorous depth of his voice, Mr. Hines was only intermittently convincing as the half-mad regicide. Admittedly, Boris is one of the most difficult roles in all opera due to the larger-than-life character of the Czar as recreated by Mussorgsky and the magnetic grandeur combined with a sense of inner frenzy that he must generate whenever he is on the stage. Too often, Mr. Hines seemed to be just a singer dressed in royal robes.

Mr. Kullman made little attempt to develop the Machiavellian, Iago-like figure of Schuisky and there was no compensation in the quality of his singing. Mr. Corena, who is on his way to becoming a great character actor, made a redolently besotted Varlaam without being silly about it, and Miss Wall, in a boy's role, was animatedly busy but largely inaudible.

Others in the cast were Martha Lipton, Brenda Lewis, Giorgio Tozzi, Brian Sullivan and Kim Borg. Erich Leinsdorf conducted.

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