BBC Music Magazine
'... there is no better Boris on CD than John Tomlinson, even though the competition includes such legends as Ghiaurov and Christoff (whose recording suffers from the decision to cast him in three roles). Tomlinson's towering Boris is both utterly dominating and yet so tortured by guilt that his descent into breakdown and eventual death is chilling.'
Recorded in Leeds Town Hall 8-10 June 1997
Producer - Brian Couzens
Sound engineer - Ralph Couzens
Assistant engineers - Ben Connellan
and Richard Smoker
Based on the initial version of 1869
Libretto by the composer
Based on Pushkin's historical tragedy of the same name
and Karamzin's History of the Russian State
English translation by David Lloyd-Jones
Coronation Scene
Apartments Scene
St Basil Scene
Death Scene
The Cast
John Tomlinson, bass - Boris
Stuart Kale, tenor - Prince Shuisky
Clive Bayley, bass (PMF Scholar) - Varlaam
Joan Rodgers, soprano (PMF Scholar) - Xenia
Susan Parry, mezzo-soprano - Feodor
Yvonne Howard, mezzo-soprano - The Old Nurse
Mark Curtis, tenor - Simpleton
Matthew Best, bass - Pimen
Brian Cookson, tenor - Boyar
Edward Thornton, baritone - Mitiukha
Stephen Dawson, baritone - Shchelkalov
Chorus of Opera North
Martin Fitzpatrick - chorus master
Choristers of Leeds Parish Church
Simon Lindley - chorus master
English Northern Philharmonia
Paul Daniel - conductor
Gramophone
'John Tomlinson remains very much at the centre of events... 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 characterisation. 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 realistic death scenes right to the last notes... It is a nobly sung performance.'
