Boris Godunov, Royal Opera House

★★★★

Modest Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov is not an easy night at the opera. Dark, heavy, and obsessed with guilt and power, it strips away romance and replaces it with fear, paranoia and moral collapse. Richard Jones’s production, now revived at the Royal Opera House, leans fully into that darkness, offering a stark, unsettling account that feels both relentless and strangely intimate.

What sets this staging apart is its psychological focus. Before a note is sung, we are confronted with the murder that defines the story: the killing of the child Tsarevich Dmitry. The image of a brightly coloured spinning top, innocent and nightmarish at once, becomes a recurring visual motif, replayed like a mental wound Boris can never escape. From that point on, the production is less about politics than about what guilt does to a man over time.

Bryn Terfel is the centre of gravity. His Boris is not a monster but a broken ruler, visibly unraveling as the weight of his crime presses down on him. Vocally, Terfel is in commanding form, his bass-baritone flexible and expressive, capable of grandeur one moment and fragile introspection the next. He charts Boris’s decline with real compassion, so that by the final scenes his madness feels tragic rather than terrifying. It is a performance that holds the evening together.

Musically, Mark Wigglesworth drives the opera forward with iron control. The score’s density can easily become oppressive, but here the pacing is sharp and purposeful. Brass and bells grind menacingly, while moments of light, especially in the woodwind and strings, offer brief, unsettling relief. The Royal Opera House orchestra plays with bite and clarity, and the chorus is outstanding, sounding both brutal and pleading as Mussorgsky intended.

Miriam Buether’s set is deceptively simple: a vast grey box split into social layers. The ruling class occupies a bright, claustrophobic upper chamber, while the masses remain trapped below in mud-coloured despair. The visual language is clear and effective, reinforcing the opera’s brutal class divide without unnecessary decoration. Costumes and lighting stay deliberately muted, allowing the singing and drama to dominate.

There are moments of dark humour and surreal detail, especially in the tavern scene, but this is not a production that seeks variety for its own sake. Its strength lies in its focus. While the emotional tone is unremitting and may feel exhausting, that seems very much the point.

This Boris Godunov is stark, powerful and musically assured, anchored by a towering central performance. It may not be an easy watch, but it is a compelling one.

Image credit: rbo.org.uk