Martti Talvela-Boris-I Have attained to Power

The monologue in Finnish in the original Mussorgsky orchestration. Compare this to Hines' rendition also on this channel.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• opera
• basses
• Russian_opera
• Boris

[lukebrainard2006]

The son is usually dismissed before Boris starts in with "I have attained to power."

[lukebrainard2006]

Here Boris begins his monologue in front of his son. This is a HUGE mistake. The monologue reveals Boris' psychosis, something he tried hard to keep from showing his son. As well as this monologue is sung I don't really believe the character is in the middle of a psychotic break.

[adeverger]

This is waaaaay freaking awesome.

[tahileki]

Really I have to disagree that it's a mistake for Boris's son to be present during the monologue. I think it works great in this production. Boris is trying to prepare Feodor for leadership, so it's time to share some of its troubles with him. And there's no-one else he can trust. (Not even his wife? Sad. She doesn't appear in the opera at all). But as he gets more and more upset he probably forgets that Feodor's there. And his real psychotic break comes after this, in the Clock Scene.

[stevevandien]

Talvela was a splendid artist with one of the great bass voices -- beautiful AND powerful. Not to mention his (literally) towering presence:). May he rest in piece --

[lukebrainard2006]

@BorisGodunov I am sorry but YOU are the ignorant one. If you knew Russian history you would know that Boris was written for Russian baritone, the same voice part for which Rubinstein wrote The Demon. The tradition of allowing basses to sing the part started quickly however. And the young Chaliapin was more of a baritone. He sang Tonio and Valentin. By the 20th century dramatic Russian baritones were rare, replaced by lyric voices, and Boris and the Demon were taken over by basses.

[BorisGodunov]

No, Agorante, I didn't put words in your mouth. You made claims that were absurd, based on your ignorance of the original Mussorgsky version and the opera's performance history, and instead of just admitting your error, you insisted on stubbornly sticking to the silly notion that it was "wrong" (your word, not mine) for a bass to be singing Boris, and the demonstrably false claim that Talvela had the role "transposed" (your word).

There's an old saying: you can lead a horse to water...

[Agorante]

Dear BG,

I'm going to leave you and this discussion now. You insist on putting words in my mouth. From now on you can just argue with yourself. You don't need me.

Try not to get over excited.

[Agorante]

@BorisGodunov

Excellent argument but to whom is it directed? Certainly not me. I never said Christoff or Reizen was a baritone. I did point out that they had very good tops. Tops which they would need to sing the Rimsky Boris - which was conceived as a baritone part.

My original point stands - Boris is not a bass part but a bass-baritone part - rather like Caspar in Freischuetz. You say you have the score(s) - open them up. Read the cast of characters page.

[Agorante]

I just looked up the Boris score on Google. The part of Boris is listed in the score as a baritone part not a bass part. This is the Rimsky version (1844-1908) made world famous by Chailiapin that everyone used until 1970 or so. This aria in Rimsky's version is written in seven flats. It has two high G Flats in it. Talvela sings some lower version here - there are now several to choose from.

Probably no one would ever have heard of Boris without Rimsky.

[Agorante]

Boris is only done in the west when a "star" is available for the title part. If he doesn't want to sing all those high notes live on stage - no problem. Lower options exist. This is true for Rodolfo in La Boheme too.

Mark Reizen (a famous Boris) was also famous for his high G. Boris Christoff also had a super high G. They could and did do the Rimsky version. In the Shirmer Bass Arias book this aria (Rimsky version) is by far the highest. Try singing it sometime.

[Agorante]

@BorisGodunov

I don't have a full score of Boris. The two aria scores I looked at are both of the Rimsky-Korsakoff's version

Sam Ramey recently sang Boris in SF. He was billed as a bass-baritone. Chialiapin was a bass-baritone. George London and James Morris also did Boris. When I heard Ghiaurov (a real bass) sing it he skipped the high notes as does Talvela (a real bass) on this exerpt. Tomlinson (a bass) did Boris about the same time he moved up to Wotan.