Tag Archives: Boris Godunov

Distinctions of Desire

The opera of Boris Godunov by Modest Mussorgsky presents several different depictions of the morality of desire.

Early in the opera, just before Tsar Boris exits the stage after his first entrance, two children crawl up to him and touch his extravagant garments. They hold their hands out for help, yet Tsar Boris not only denies them, but also seems deeply disturbed. Is it their neediness and desire that causes this reaction, or their mere disrespect? To what extent are these all the same things?

In the depiction of Grigory and the older monk Pimen, Pimen aims to educate Grigory on how to be a moral individual. Grigory has selfish temptation for glory; he wishes not to be a monk for life and perhaps to have fought for Russia and the Tsar as Pimen did). Pimen at once chastises Grigory for this desire and still himself glorifies past leaders. He speaks of Ivan’s repentance in the same monastery, and of Feodor converting the Tsar’s rooms into a monks cell. While Pimen holds royalty in high esteem, he finds love to be a more problematic aspiration and talks of the “treachery of woman’s love.”

Later, Grigory assumes the position of the fake Tsarevich Dmitry and courts a Polish noblewoman named Marina. Here, he makes an entirely different distinction about desire than Pimen did. He claims that he wants Marina to love him and regards her love of his political aspirations as somewhat distasteful initially. Even as Marina saves the argument, she says she says to Grigory that she feels “love and desire for your glory.” But does that mean she has a desire for his glory, or that she desires him to be glorious? How might these different interpretations be regarded in Grigory’s  or Pimen’s mind, and how might they have been regarded in the time when Boris Godunov was written?

Courting (Disaster)

As I watched this adaption of Modest Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, I was struck by the (apparent) subtext of Grirogy’s (ie, the ‘Tsarevich’) courtship scene with the Polish noblewoman Marina Mniszek. Thompson points to the recapture of Moscow in 1612 by a nascent ‘national movement’ as a clear symbol of Russian determination to regain control over their fate from foreigners and usurpers. Avraamy Palitsyn’s work on ‘Pseudo-Dmitry’ pulsates with vitriol against foreign, non-Orthodox elements: the False Dmitry gives the hated Catholics a ‘written promise’ to deliver Russia up to the ‘Antichrist’ of Papism, as the Poles squander Russia’s ‘ancient’ patrimony and bathe themselves in various holy vessels. Although the recapture of Moscow takes place after the events of Boris Godunov, one could reasonably expect that any work depicting the Time of Troubles, a time charged with swirling crosscurrents of religious and national fervor, would reflect some of these themes.

The danger is of reading too much into a portly ex-Monk begging a haughty princess for her hand. Earlier in the class, we talked about the role the feminine played in Russian culture, that eternal incarnation of the ever-loving mat’. The princess mocks this sort of love-her eyes lifts skywards (a parody of ‘true belief’?), and with glazed eyes she ironically pronounces that her and the tsarevich will live on ‘love alone.’ Then her face changes, and Grigory is reminded that if love is all he wants, in Russia he’ll find all the ‘rosy-cheeked women’ he wants. Rosy cheeks, vital with lifeblood and the ‘feminine’, are to be found in Russia, but Grigory rejects this kind of love with a shrug-it will ‘smother’ him. He offers the princess a flower, a shred of the vital, natural world, but the foreigner rejects it-only the throne can win her heart. Russia, lost and confused in the form of Grigoriy, seeks the ‘love’ of the West, tricked by Blok’s ‘suffocating mortal odor.’ The West (the heretical West!) is not interested, unless Russia will submit in her entirety. Finally, let’s talk about the staging of this scene. Darkness hangs over the stage, and on either side of the center, receding into that darkness, stand two rows of classical-esque toga-bearing statues with their backs turned. Mute idols of the Western tradition, they betray the true fruits of this union-power to the Poles, Russia degraded and left in darkness. This, of course, is not an authoritative reading-it’s just food for thought! (bread and salt, if you will).

Here is your Tsar, forgive…

As I watched the opera excerpts, I was immediately struck by a number of things: first, the costumes. The aesthetic feels truly Russian and the splendor of the Tsar and his men surrounding him, backed by a massive church bell, is a striking image. Delving deeper, I was fascinated by the begging of the commoners, urged on by the always conniving boyars, pleading with Boris Godunov to rule over them. The way Boris looks down at the peasants reaching after him is a bit terrifying, paired with the divine worship the Tsar receives “throughout Russia”.

Once again, as many of our texts and films have shown, religion permeates every aspect of life — blessing the new Tsar as a sort of deity himself, the monks discussing internal strife and the benefits of leaving the “world of sin”… There is an immense amount of respect held for monastic life. Moving on, can we talk about the monk’s discussion of Ivan’s son’s death?! It was like another perspective on that famous portrait; I loved it.

Lastly, I was very interested by the dying words of the Tsar to his son, as he ushered him into an era to come that would not be easy to reign over. The pose of the Tsar dying in his son’s arms was a strangely pleasing parallel to the earlier discussion of Ivan IV (and of course how his relationship with his firstborn played out). It was a truly painful scene (“o cruel death, you torment me!”) complete with an absolutely dramatic death that seems to be key.

Apologies if this is not my best or most succinct writing, but this opera made for a good sick-in-bed watch!