This is the first time this desirable set has been generally available in this country and it has been well worth the wait. It is certainly the most authentic-sounding version of the Rimsky arrangement so far recorded. Under Melik-Pashayev’s conducting, which combines discipline, an innate understanding of the score’s rhythmic and melodic requirements and sheer experience in directing the work, it flows onwards in a steady stream of musical and dramatic consistency.
Nowhere among versions at present available, or perhaps anywhere else, will you hear such a cast of singers, steeped in the best tradition of performing the work at the Bolshoi, and at the same time so apt for their given roles. Petrov isn’t at all in the Chaliapin or Christoff (Dobrowen) mould of performing the work: his performance is entirely free of melodrama and is sung with all the vocal verities observed in a rounded, warm bass. In his more modest way, Petrov invests his role with just as much feeling and drama as his more histrionic rivals – and in that has much in common with Ghiaurov on the Karajan version while being rather more involving. Petrov’s is a richly rewarding portrayal on all counts.
Even better is the Marina of the young Arkhipova. In her case, one can assert with certainty that she has no peer, let alone a better on any other set. The proud carriage of her voice and the finely nuanced character of her loud and soft singing are just what one wants from the ambitious Polish Princess. Her Grigory, Ivanovsky, isn’t vocally quite in her class – the voice sounds strained under pressure – but, like everyone else in the cast, he is very much inside his role and declaims it with real passion. In the Polish act Kibkalo makes an ideally insinuating Rangoni.
Reshetin is perfectly cast as grave old Pimen; he is another bass whose tone is well supported and easily produced. Shulpin has one of those sharp-edged tenors that many British ears abhor, but it seems to me absolutely the right voice for that crepuscular, two-faced boyar. Grigoryev is a plangent, touching Simpleton. Most of the supporting cast is in the same mould, peculiarly Russian, and therefore idiomatic in timbre.
Some may baulk at the backward recording of the orchestra, but at least it is a pleasure to my ears to hear the full tone of the soloists. The excellent singing of the chorus is also vividly caught. The stereo spread is a trifle too marked. Compared with the resplendent Karajan the sound is inevitably disappointing, but Karajan’s effort is as a whole too glamorous for the piece. The Dobrowen has conducting in the class of Melik-Pashayev, and the great Christoff, but the sound is mono and the version cut. If you enjoy Rimsky’s admittedly inauthentic scoring as much as I do, you should seriously consider this well-remastered Melodiya set.'