After a busy day of 3 Choirs rehearsal at Gloucester Cathedral I leapt on a train to London and we went to hear Boris Godunov, with pretty much the same cast as was in the cinema relay of the ROH production.
My observations made earlier about the cast still hold. This was the first time I’d been to an opera at the Proms. We didn’t get a programme, which would have given us the libretto. Although if I’d had one, I’m not sure I’d have wanted to use it much, as I wouldn’t have liked adjusting my gaze from the singers to the libretto and back again.
This was semi-staged, so the costumes survived but not the props (we would have found the warrant which is referred to in the tavern scene a useful accessory) or the staging. In some ways this was an advantage as we lost the repeated re enactment of Dmitri’s murder. The chorus sang from the choir seating so one just had to imagine them moving among the principals.
I was rather tired from my long day, but appreciated hearing live what I’d already experienced in the cinema. It was the first time I’d sat in one of the boxes in the Albert Hall.