In 1989, as part of his farewell season with Opera North, David Lloyd-Jones conducted the seven-scene version of Boris Godunov in his own translation and edition, with John Tomlinson in the title-role. This is in a sense a souvenir of performances that made a great impression, though it is now Lloyd-Jones’s successor, Paul Daniel, who guides these highlights, and very strongly and colourfully too. Tomlinson remains very much at the centre of events, as is demanded especially in this version. His ample voice is Germanic in timbre rather than essentially Slavonic – he is of course a fine Sachs and Wotan – but he has the depth and resonance, above all the response to Mussorgsky’s fluid vocal lines. It is in this way that he achieves his characterization. There is a minimum of gasping in the Clock scene, delivered with a steadily increasing depth of fear, and he sings the greatest of all Realist death scenes right to the last notes (eschewing Rimsky-Korsakov’s parlando). It is a nobly sung performance.
He is intelligently supported by Matthew Best’s Pimen, more immediate and human than the traditional grave admonisher, and by Stuart Kale’s Shuisky, oily in his elegance; there are attractive contributions from Joan Rodgers’s Xenia and Susan Parry’s Feodor. Clive Bayley’s Varlaam does not come off quite as well as it might in the theatre, and the recorded balance has something to do with this. Leeds Town Hall has a difficult acoustic, especially when not filled with an audience, and the problem here becomes exacerbated with the chorus, who at times are barely lucid when set against the orchestra. Nevertheless, for Tomlinson’s portrayal of the Tsar, and as a reminder for all who have admired Opera North’s performances of the work, this is an enjoyable record.'