"BORIS GODOUNOV"
Sir-In fairness to Moussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, M. T. Dixon, myself and anyone else who might be interested, it should be remarked that Rimsky-Kor-sakov’s refurbishing of Boris went much further than adding a few notes and titivating up the orchestration. The long and the short of it was that R-K finished up by transferring the focus of dramatic interest from Mougsorgsky’s rabble, the "people," to Tsar Boris with whom I rather fancy Rimsky was more in sympathy. As that penetrating critic of Moussorgsky’s work, M. D. Calvocoressi, wrote: "The revision did not give a true picture of Moussorgsky’s genius, and the
real Boris was incomparably finer." Having seen a performance of Boris fairly representing Moussorgsky’s dramatic intentions-as was my good fortune (Covent Garden, 1948)-with the stage finally taken up with the triumphant mob and not the pathetic: final sobbings of Boris, one can well believe this true. But, after all, perhapsWhen Modeste P. Moussorgsky dashed off oris"’ He ame no thought of Rimsky’s pido Which make his Tsar Much more bizarre. But I hardly think the ghost of Modeste Will turn a hair or make a protest When Boris dies off With a Rimsky-Korsakov; For R-K’s glitter or Moussorgsky’s roughhewn stuff A\ Take it how you please, it still leaves Boris good enough!
OWEN
JENSEN
(Wellington),
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19540625.2.12.5
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 779, 25 June 1954, Page 5
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216"BORIS GODOUNOV" New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 779, 25 June 1954, Page 5
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