[Met Performance] CID:144690
Boris Godunov {114} Opera House, Chicago, Illinois: 04/21/1947.
(Review)
Chicago, Illinois
April 21, 1947
In Italian
BORIS GODUNOV {114}
Boris Godunov...........Ezio Pinza
Prince Shuisky..........John Garris
Pimen...................Virgilio Lazzari
Grigory.................Richard Tucker
Marina..................Risė Stevens
Rangoni.................Frank Valentino
Varlaam.................Salvatore Baccaloni
Simpleton...............Anthony Marlowe
Nikitich................Osie Hawkins
Shchelkalov.............Robert Merrill
Innkeeper...............Claramae Turner
Missail.................Lodovico Oliviero
Officer.................Jerome Hines
Xenia...................Frances Greer
Feodor..................Irene Jordan
Nurse...................Martha Lipton
Khrushchov..............Unknown
Lavitsky................Hugh Thompson
Chernikovsky............George Cehanovsky
Boyar in Attendance.....Leslie Chabay
Dance...................Edward Caton
Conductor...............Emil Cooper
Review of William Leonard in the Chicago Journal of Commerce
Metropolitan Opera Opens Week Stay With Colorful "Boris Godounov"
The Metropolitan Opera Association started its brief Chicago engagement with a good show, at the Opera House last night. Its revival of "Boris Goudonov" is not the best knit, orchestrally or vocally, of operas, but it is splendidly sung in most of its many roles, and last night it had color and pageantry and sweep to constitute a bright first-night attraction.
Ezio Pinza sang the title role which had been in the custody of Alexander Kipnis when the Moussorgsky opera last was heard here four years ago, and sang it on the grand scale it demands and which few voices save his huge basso could encompass. There is more surface emotions in his portrayal of the czar, a Verdian excitement strangely alien to the Russian scene, but there is tragedy of regal sort as well. The Pinza tones were not at their most resonant in his brief first-act scene, but soared brilliantly in the apparition sequence and were of such caliber thereafter that it seemed difficult to imagine Richard Tucker or any other "pretender" actually daring to usurp the crown of a man who could sing like that.
Next most important "character' in the Russian populace, or that portion of the people represented by the chorus. The Met choristers sang with spirit and precision last night, but they had neither the buoyancy in the happier interludes not the effect of mass frustration in the later scenes which it is not at all impossible for an operatic chorus to achieve in "Boris." Nor was their failure to portray the Russian masses attributable to the fact that the opera was sung in Italian. In 1943 the chorus was singing in Italian while Mr. Kipnis was intoning his part of the libretto in Russian, and the effect was far more electrifying than in last night's precise but somehow leaden performance.
Other singers stood out individually, but often gave the effect of an unrelated series of solos, rather than fitting into a single picture of oppression and unrest on a national scale. There was animation and color in the music Emil Cooper conducted, but there was insufficient dramatic unity about the four acts.
Occasionally, as in the Lithuanian inn scene in which Salvatore Baccaloni and Lodovico Oliviero were the mendicants, there was an authentic atmosphere that made "Boris" a really gripping adventure. Generally, however, there were color and bright notes and good singing, but too little dimension.
Mr. Tucker was a highly convincing faker as the false Dmitri, Rise Stevens was the ambitious Marina egging him on with believable intensity, and Irene Jordan and Frances Greer were so-so as the czar's children. Virgillio Lazzari, dependable as ever, had a short but excellent bit as Brother Pimen.
Those who came to hear good singing were not disappointed.
Nor probably were those photographed first-nighters who were intent on making a society event of the [first night] of a one-week stand in the opera company's tour of 14 cities.