Boris Godunov, The Royal Opera, Covent Garden, 4 October 2003

This Sunday matinee performance was meant to be a special treat for A and me. It very nearly turned into a complete disaster, as we were turned away by the nice girl in the red Royal Opera jacket on the main doors because, as she so politely pointed out, our tickets were for the evening performance two days earlier. I was rather upset by this, because the internet booking system had ended up sending me the wrong tickets (there is no way that I would have asked for two tickets to a Friday evening performance) and I hadn't noticed the error. We were just beginning to think of alternatives ways of spending a Sunday afternoon in London (the British Museum was one idea but that appealed to A more than to me). Fortunately there were two return tickets for seats in the amphitheatre, so after taking a deep breath and trying to force out of my mind the total cost of the afternoon's entertainment, we paid for the two return tickets.

Having had such difficulty getting through the front door, I needed a stiff drink. I had booked us a table at the Amphitheatre restaurant inside the theatre - the first time we had eaten there. I was pleasantly surprised by the standard of the food, especially since two courses of food plus a glass of wine each only cost us 30 pounds. We didn't have time for pudding, and sadly they don't serve dessert during the interval of matinee performances (I plan to do this one day for an evening performance and have dessert and coffee in the interval).

And the opera?

Some fantastic music, and very strong performances musically, but sadly let down by an over-long performance and the dreary, unchanging, set.

Running time: I don't know the history of the opera in depth, but from the programme notes, I understand that Mussorgsky himself revised the opera several times, adding in and taking out whole acts, and the Rimsky-Korsakov had his finger in the pie too. Is it just my imagination or do the Russians always revise each others' work like this? This version was researched by David Lloyd-Jones for this 1983 production. There are around 3 3/4 hours of music. The Royal Opera runs this with only one interval. Each sitting - of two acts - is nearly two hours long. This is too long! And to add insult to injury, the interval is very short, as the set does not need to be changed. It is not like the Royal Opera to reduce its bar sales by having a shorter interval than necessary. We had barely got our drinks before the 10 minute bell rang. But seriously, I don't understand why some judicious cutting wasn't done - there are whole stretches of repetitive choruses and orchestral interludes that could be cut without anyone missing them. I would have enjoyed the whole even more if I had been concentrating properly all the way through.

Music: some good stuff. I particularly liked all the peasant dances, and the little folk songs sung by the inn-keeper and nurse. The musical language is a little odd - I don't know enough about Mussorgsky to know whether the very Russian musical language/tonality is his natural language, or whether he is consciously writing in an assumed 16th century Russian idiom. Whatever, it worked for me. I also liked the development of the 'False Dmitry' theme that is played every time Dmitry is on stage, or his name is mentioned - it starts out very innocently, and then mutates into a military call to arms towards the end of the last act.

Performances: all excellent. There was obviously a competition between the men for 'largest Russian bass' - they are huge! John Tomlinson (the only British large bass) won hands down. He was excellent, I would love to see him in some Wagner. There were lots of up and comings as well, thanks to the Vilar young Artists platform. It was good to see Ailish Tynan again (she was Papagena in Zauberflote last season and won the BBC Singer of the World lieder prize this year).

Set: the performance is a revival of the 1983 production. It illustrates how far the ROH has come technically in 20 years - there is one set throughout, with no moving parts, and not much real interest on stage. I was practically begging for some pyrotechnics by the end - there isn't quite enough going on in the music to really absorb your attention if the plot isn't advancing - and all we got was a bit of twinkly snow coming down from the ceiling. Please, will someone pay for an up to date production, with about half an hour less music? I would pay to see that - I won't be paying to see this production again.