If one characteristic distinguishes Boris Godunov, it is the consistency with which every person on the stage -- including the chorus -- comes alive in the music.
Much of this lifelike quality results from Mussorgsky's care in basing his vocal line on natural speech inflections.
In this he followed a path that led back to the very source of opera;
such composers as Monteverdi, Lully and Purcell, with the same goal in mind, had developed styles of recitative sensitively attuned to their own languages.
Through long experimentation in his songs, Mussorgsky developed a Russian recitative as different from others as the language itself.
Giving most of his musical continuity to the orchestra, he lets the speech fall into place as if by coincidence, but controlling the pace and emphasis of the words.

The moments of sung melody, in the usual sense, come most often when the character is actually supposed to be singing, as in folk songs and liturgical chants.
Otherwise Mussorgsky reserves his vocal melodies for prolonged expressions of emotion -- Boris' first monologue, for example.
Even then, the flexibility of the phrasing suggests that the word comes first in importance.

Aside from Boris himself, one need but examine the secondary roles to place Mussorgsky among the masters of musical portraiture.
Even those who appear in only one or two scenes are full personalities, defined with economical precision.
Consider the four monks who figure prominently in the action: Pimen, Varlaam, Missail and the Jesuit Rangoni.
Under no circumstances could we mistake one for the other;
each musical setting has an individual touch.

Pimen is an old man, weak in body -- his voice rarely rises to a full forte -- but firm and clear of mind.
His calmness offers contrast to Grigori's youthful excitement.
A quiet but sturdy theme, somewhat folklike in character, appears whenever the old monk speaks of the history he is recording or of his own past life:

This theme comes to represent the outer world, the realm of battles and banquets -- seen from a distance, quite distinct from the quieter spiritual life in the monastery.
It changes and develops according to the text;
it introduces Pimen when he comes before Boris in the last act.
Once he has been identified, however, a new melody is used to accompany his narrative, a bleak motif with barren octaves creating a rather ancient effect:

An imaginative storyteller, Pimen takes on the character he describes, as if he were experiencing the old shepherd's blindness and miraculous cure.
Here the composer uses a favorite device of his, the intensification of the mood through key relationships.
The original D minor seems to symbolize blindness, inescapable in spite of all attempts to move away from it.
As the child addresses the shepherd in a dream, light -- in the form of the major mode -- begins to appear, and at the moment of the miracle we hear a clear and shining D major.

Varlaam and Missail always appear together and often sing together, in a straightforward, rhythmically vigorous idiom that distinguishes them from the more subtle and well-educated Pimen.
Their begging song might easily be a folk melody:

The same could be said for the song to which they make their entrance in the final scene.
Apparently their origin is humble, their approach to life direct and unsophisticated.
Whatever learning they may have had in their order doesn't disturb them now.

Missail is the straight man, not very talkative, mild-mannered when he does speak.
Varlaam is loud, rowdy, uninhibited in his pleasures and impatient with anyone who is not the same.
A rough ostinato figure, heard first in the introduction to the inn scene, characterizes him amusingly and reappears whenever he comes into the action:

The Song Of Kazan, in which this figure becomes a wild-sounding accompaniment, fills in the picture of undisciplined high spirits.
The phrasing is irregular, and the abrupt key changes have a primitive forcefulness.
(We can imagine how they startled audiences of the 1870's.
)

Varlaam's music begins to ramble as he feels the effects of the wine, but he pulls himself together when the need arises.
Both monks respond to the guard's challenge with a few phrases of their begging song;
a clever naturalistic touch is Varlaam's labored reading of the warrant.
As the knack gradually comes back to him, his rhythm becomes steadier, with the rigid monotony of an unskilled reader.
For the only time in the opera, words are not set according to their natural inflection;
to do so would have spoiled the dramatic point of the scene.

Musically and dramatically, Rangoni is as far removed from the conventional monk as Varlaam.
His music shows a sensuality coupled with an eerie quality that suggest somehow a blood-kinship with Dappertutto in Offenbach's Hoffman.
His speech shows none of the native accent of the Russian characters;
in spite of the Italian name, he sounds French.
His personality appears more striking by contrast with Marina, who is -- perhaps purposely -- rather superficially characterized.

Rangoni's first entrance is a musical shock, a sudden open fifth in a key totally unrelated to what has preceded it.
The effect is as if he had materialized out of nowhere.
He speaks quietly, concealing his authority beneath a smooth humility, just as the shifting harmonies that accompany him all but hide the firm pedal point beneath them.
He addresses Marina with great deference, calling her "Princess" at first;
it is only after he has involved her emotions in his scheme that he uses her given name, placing himself by implication in the position of a solicitous father.

Curiously, this scene is a close parallel to one that Verdi was writing at the same time, the scene between Amonasro and Aida.
Rangoni and Amonasro have the same purpose -- forcing the girl to charm the man she loves into serving her country's cause -- and their tactics are much the same.
Rangoni begins by describing the sad state of the Church;
this brings a reaction of distress from Marina.
The music becomes ethereal as he calls up a vision of her own sainthood: it is she, he tells her, who can bring the truth to Russia and convert the heretics.
As if in a trance, she repeats his words -- then realizes, with a shock, her own audacity.
This is no assignment for a frivolous girl, she assures him.

Now Rangoni comes to the point, and we hear, for the first time, a long, downward chromatic scale that will become the characteristic motif of his sinister power.
It is a phrase as arresting as a magician's gesture, with a piquant turn of harmony giving an effect of strangeness.
Another theme, sinuously chromatic, appears as he directs her to gain power over Grigori by any means, even at the cost of her honor.
Coming from a priest, the music sounds as odd as the advice:

Marina rebels at this suggestion.
Her pride is as much at stake as her virtue;
she is the unattainable beauty, the princess who turns away suitors by the dozen.
Indignantly she denounces Rangoni for his evil thoughts and orders him to leave her.

At once the Jesuit pulls out all the stops.
To music of a menacing darkness, he describes the powers of Satan gaining control of the girl, poisoning her soul with pride and destroying her beauty.
The combined threat of hell-fire and ugliness is too much for her, and she falls terrified at his feet.
With another sudden change of mood, he is again calm and protective, exhorting her to trust and obey him as God's spokesman -- and the chromatic scale descends in ominous contradiction.
Whatever the source of Rangoni's power, Marina is his captive now;
we are reminded of this at the end of the next scene, when his theme cuts through the warmth of the love duet, again throwing a chill over the atmosphere.

The most unusual feature of Boris, however, is the use of the greatest character of all, the chorus.
This is the real protagonist of the drama;
the conflict is not Boris versus Grigori or Shuiski or even the ghost of the murdered child, but Boris versus the Russian people.
Mussorgsky makes this quite clear by the extent to which choral scenes propel the action.
Boris' first entrance seems almost a footnote to the splendor of the Coronation Scene, with its dazzling confusion of tonalities.
We have a brief glimpse of the Tsar's public personality, the "official Boris", but our real focus is on the excitement of the crowd -- a significant contrast with its halfhearted acclamation in the opening scene, its bitter resentment and fury in the final act.

One reason for the unique vitality of the chorus is its great variety in expression.
It rarely speaks as a unit.
Even in its most conventional appearance, the guests' song of praise to Marina, there are a few female dissenters criticizing the princess for her coldness.
In many passages -- for example, the council of boyars -- each section of the chorus becomes a character group with a particular opinion.
Hot arguments arise between tenors and basses, who will sing in harmony only when they agree on an idea.

The opening scene shows this method at its most individual.
Mussorgsky paints a telling picture of the common people, those who must suffer the effects of their rulers' struggle for power without understanding the causes.
They are held in control by force, but barely.
They will kneel and plead for Boris' leadership in a strangely intense song, its phrases irregularly broken as if gasping for breath, but when the police with their cudgels move away, they mock and grumble and fight among themselves.
There is a quick change from the plaintive song to a conversational tone.
"Hey, Mityukh", asks one group, "what are we shouting about"?
And Mityukh, apparently the intellectual leader of the crowd, replies that he has no notion.
The jokes and arguments grow louder until the police return;
then the people strike up their song with even more fervor than before, ending it with a wail of despair.

Mussorgsky frequently uses liturgical music with considerable dramatic force.
In Pimen's cell the soft prayers of the monks, heard from offstage, not only help to set the scene but emphasize the contrast between young Grigori's thoughts and his situation.
This is especially striking between Pimen's quiet exit and Grigori's vehement outburst against Boris.

Again, as Boris feels himself nearing death, a procession files into the hall singing a hymn, its modal harmonies adding a churchly touch to the grim atmosphere: The words are hardly calculated to put the Tsar's mind at ease.
They echo the words with which he has described his own vision of the dying child who "trembles and begs for mercy -- and there is no mercy".
The living as well as the dead now accuse him;
this final reminder of his guilt is the fatal one.

One of the outstanding assets of the present production is the restoration of the St. Basil's scene, usually omitted from performances and rarely included in a published score.
Though brief, it has a sharp dramatic edge and great poignancy.
In addition, it is an important link in the plot, giving us a revealing glimpse of the people's attitude toward Boris and the false Dimitri.
The mayhem in the forest of Kromy is a natural sequel.

The St. Basil's scene opens with little groups of beggars milling around the square, the ever present police keeping them under scrutiny.
In the orchestra we hear first a hushed, hesitant pizzicato figure, then the insistent "police" motif as it appeared in the opening scene.

The service is over, and a number of people come from the church with their spokesman Mityukh in the lead.
They bring the news that the Pretender has been excommunicated;
this is met with scorn by the hearers, who claim that Mityukh is lying or drunk.
(Mussorgsky cleverly contrasts the two groups by their orchestral accompaniment, solemn chords or mocking staccatos.
) There is still more news, Mityukh announces: they have prayed for the soul of the Tsarevich.