The surprising energy and determination of Boris Goldovsky brought to Boston last week a new musical idea which may fill one of the city's most acute artistic acute artistic vacuums. Boston, like every other city in the United States but New York, has no worth-while grand opera of its own and is forced to depend on annual visits by the Metropolitan for whatever operatic experience it gets. If Goldovsky's latest project is carried on and improved, however, from last week's excellent starting point, this sorry tradition should evaporate quickly.

The New England Opera Theatre was founded on the announced premise that opera must be seen as well as heard and should therefore be considered just as much from a theatrical as a musical viewpoint. In line with this policy, Goldovsky decided to do his first production, "The Marriage of Figaro," in English, so that not only the audience but the singers themselves would understand the motivation behind the action and music of the opera.

The success achieved by the Opera Theatre, however, should by no means point out its efforts as the solution to the "opera problem" of the twentieth century, for there is no denying that musical values are sacrificed by overemphasis on stage effect. Conductor Goldovsky's order to his singers not to look at him during the course of the performance, for example, may have added to the stage reality of the production, but it surely did not add to the necessarily exact timing between the orchestra, solo voices, and chorus. And despite the obvious virtues of understanding gained by using English words, no one interested in music will ever be reconciled to hearing the quick rhymes and smooth-flowing Italian diction of librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte exchanged for the ponderous, ungainly English of even so able translator as Edward Dent.

The musical excellence of Goldovsky's effort also suffered somewhat from the mediocrity of several of his singers. Robert Gay and Francis Barnard in the leading male roles of the Count and Figaro, respectively, lacked both the force and training essential to good Mozartean baritones. Luigi Vellucci, however, surprised with superb performances in two roles, the comic ones of Basilio and Curzio.

In the female parts the percentage was higher, with Mildred Mueller contributing an excellent voice to the musically important role of Cherubino and Nancy Trickey and Margaret Goldovsky, who alternated in the part of Susanna, doing very criditable jobs. As the countess, Phyllis Curtin gave an in- and- out performance, muffing badly on the most important aria of the opera, Dove Sono.

Much of the Opera Theatre's initial success must be attributed to his choice of opera, for this work of Mozart's is peculiarly suited both musically and theatrically to a small-scale, intimate production. Whether Goldovsky will do so well with Puccini and Menotti, his second bill, is another question; he might do well to consider something as unusual, worth-while, and theatrically entertaining as "Cosi Fan Tutte," for his as yet unrevealed third choice for 1946-47.