Fyodor: Irra Petina/Irra Petina; Xenia: Marita Farell/Marita Farell; Innkeeper: Doris Doe/Doris Doe; Nurse: Anna Kaskas/Anna Kaskas. The consistent depth of the Met roster is on display in these roles. Petina, who also went to Broadway (in the original Candide) after extended yeoperson service with the Met, brings a plausibly strong, bright mezzo to Fyodor; in ’39 she gets her Tale of the Parrot, but by ’43 it’s gone. Farell sings Xenia’s Lament with plaintive commitment. Doe does well with the Innkeeper’s Song, and very well with the sotto voce travel instructions to Dimitri. Kaskas is a mezzo, not a contralto, Nurse, but her voice is clear and well-balanced, with enough strength at the bottom, and she’s on top of the assignment. All these snatches of folkish songs and games can seem to only kill time till something happens, but they pass by quite charmingly in both these performances. Both conductors set them up nicely,  Szell with a tad more sharpness.

Shchelkalov:^(I) George Cehanovsky/George Cehanovsky. As with De Paolis, with whom he was often paired (Dancaïre/Remendado; de Brétigny/Guillot, etc.), I saw this baritone often, but only in the later stages of his very long Met career (he debuted in 1926), and well after the time when he could be cast as the Lohengrin Herald or Silvio in Pagliacci. So again as with De Paolis, it is a welcome reminder to hear him in this role, which is short but in need of a real voice for the grave, beautiful address to The People in the opening scene. (Lawrence Tibbett had sung it early on, graduating to it from his debut part of Lovitsky, and Warren had taken it once or twice in the ’38-’39 season.) He sings it with lovely, steady tone and an admirable legato, the ’39 broadcast sounding marginally more tonally satisfying.

The Simpleton: Nicholas Massue/John Garris. Massue, a comprimario of short Met duration, is much too tremulous and tearful, so Garris, a musicianly tenor whose life had a tragically early and violent end, is much to be preferred. ^(II)Naturally, the Holy Fool bewails having his penny stolen. But his piercing lament is just his vision of how it is in the world—he sees what others do not. That is deeply sad, but a permanent condition, and not lachrymose. In this edition, of course, he has only the Kromy scene, since the St. Basil confrontation is not present. It was restored in the 1950s, in the orchestration of Ippolitov-Ivanov, as the Met embarked on its banishment of Rimsky and its attempts at Boris in English, and complaints arose over the repetition of the Lament. I think the repetition is wonderful, and the proper end of the opera. The Holy Fool follows power wherever it goes, in whatever form, to speak truth to it, and sings his Lament over and over, because our condition never really changes.