Product Details

• Actors: Robert Lloyd, Olga Borodina, Alexei Steblianko, Sergei Leiferkus
• Directors: Andrei Tarkovsky, Valery Gergiev
• Format: Classical, Color, DTS Surround Sound, NTSC, Subtitled
• Language: Unknown (DTS 5.1), Unknown (PCM Stereo), French (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: Chinese, English, French, German, Russian, Spanish
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Philips
• DVD Release Date: May 14, 2002
• Run Time: 210 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0000631A9
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,997 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Mussorgsky - Boris Godunov" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

119 of 122 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Boris" as Mussorgsky would have wanted it!, April 20, 2001

By 

David Cairns "Maestro" (Rye, NY United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Look no further - finally, Mussorgsky's ideas about his great drama have been realized. This is the ONLY video of Boris Godunov using Mussorgsky's own orchestration. (After the composer's death, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov took it upon himself to create a new orchestration, arrogantly considering that Mussorgsky could not possibly have meant his music to sound the way it did. Unfortunately, this reorchestration was the standard version until very recently - almost all the available recordings of the great Russian basses in this role are the Rimsky-Korsakov version.) Murder, treachery, passion and misery - what more could one want from a great opera? Mussorgsky's epic is brilliantly staged by the great Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky in a rich production from London's Covent Garden (1983). Tarkovsky succeeds in posing disquieting psychological questions in a brutally faithful rendition of great originality and profundity. There are no cuts in Mussorgsky's music in this production: it is allowed to speak for itself. The film dates from 1990, when the production was given and filmed at St. Petersburg's ornate Mariinsky Theater. A mostly Russian cast, including Olga Borodina as Marina, Alexei Steblianko as the false Dimitri, Sergei Leiferkus as Rangoni and Alexander Morosov as Pimen, is headed by the English bass Robert Lloyd in the title role (and only rarely is his foreign accent noticeable!). The singing is magnificent throughout - I think the recording technology itself is responsible for a loss of sheen from the soloists and the orchestra, conducted with true insight and bravura by a young Valery Gergiev. The chorus is superb. My only criticism is that, throughout, the film is somehow too clean and self-conscious. The extensive subtitles are extremely helpful, as are the all-too-brief notes included with the set. I hope your interest will be piqued enough to delve into this fascinating period of Russian history. Perhaps the greatest triumph of this film is that Mussorgsky's own vision of Russia is at last presented as I feel he would have wished. Bravo to the entire production!

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Musical Drama of Genius, September 5, 2003

By 

M. F TERRIS (Miami, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mussorgsky - Boris Godunov (DVD)

Boris Godunov is perhaps the most intensely dramatic of all operas, showing the fall of a great man marred by his guilt in the struggle for power. That decline and fall is reflected in the rise of his nemesis, Gregory (the false Dmitri), who in history died shortly after seizing the crown at the hands of the ever conniving Shuisky. Beyond these personal tragedies and intrigues is deeper tragedy of the Russian people; they are forever suffering and misled. "Hungry people,cry" is the last line of the opera.

Mussorgsky's extraordinarily original music makes us live and feel every nuance of his drama. All roles are beautifully sung and powerfully acted. Lloyd is a brilliant Boris. I have never seen another Varlaam portray his role with such humor. Cardinal Rangoni hovers like a spider over Marina as he twists her to his will. Gergiev is a superb conductor of Mussorgsky's original orchestrations.

The staging is also extraordinary: Tarkovsky brilliantly uses the same basic set depict a myriad of scenes, enabling each to flow into the next seamlessly. Actors portray sculptures in the Polish garden scene, changing position to mark shifts of perspective. Nevertheless, some of his devices detract from the inner strength of the drama: Boris recoils in terror from the call for alms of poor in the coronation scene; the ghost of Dmitri (the rightful Tsar whom Boris had had murdered)hovers endlessly through the play. Worst of all: Tarkovsky has everyone fall down dead at the end of the Kromny scene, instead of marching out in false triumph behind the false Dmitri.

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dreadful picture mars a valuable production, April 30, 2003

By 

Michael Brooke (Worthing, Sussex, England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mussorgsky - Boris Godunov (DVD)

Although this is a valuable record of a memorable production (the great Russian film-maker Andrei Tarkovsky's only operatic staging), purchasers of the DVD should be warned that the picture quality is absolutely diabolical.

It was sourced from a PAL video recording originally made by the BBC, but for some reason (presumably US/Japanese sales) the DVD authors decided to convert it into the NTSC system, which plays havoc with the picture definition. Worse, the low-bitrate transfer has added digital artefacts galore, which get particularly blocky every time the camera pans or zooms.

Thankfully, the sound quality (either PCM stereo or DTS 5.1) is vastly superior, and the set as a whole is clearly a must for Mussorgsky fans and Tarkovsky completists - bad though the picture is, it never completely obliterates the virtues of the original. But it's a real pity that corporate greed has made this such a badly compromised product, as I can't see a separate PAL DVD appearing any time soon.