Boris Christoff - Links

Bass-baritone, born in Plovdiv, SC Bulgaria. He studied law in Sofia, then studied singing in Rome and Salzburg. His debut recital was in Rome (1946). He sang at La Scala in Milan in 1947, at Covent Garden in 1949, and from 1956 in the USA.

Boris Christoff (Bulgarian: Борис Христов) (May 18, 1914, Plovdiv, Bulgaria – June 28, 1993, Rome, Italy) was a Bulgarian opera singer, one of the greatest basses of the 20th century.

Christoff demonstrated early his singing talent and sang as a boy at the choir of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Sofia.

After several guest appearances and recitals in Austria in 1944 and 1945, Christoff returned to Italy in December 1945. The following years Christoff appeared in a number of roles at Milan’s La Scala, Venice’s La Fenice, the Rome Opera, Covent Garden in London, the opera theatres in Naples, Barcelona, Lisbon, Rio de Janeiro, etc.

In 1950 he was invited to sing at the Metropolitan Opera in New York but was refused entry into the USA as a result of the McCarran Immigration Act, which banned citizens of the Soviet bloc countries from entering the country---the role was instead filled by the young Italian basso, Cesare Siepi.

In the 1970s Christoff on-stage performances were all but frequent.

With his matchless stage presence and strong dramatic temperament, Christoff emerged as a worthy heir to the grand tradition of Slavonic basses. Among his most famous roles were those of Tsar Boris (Mussorgsky - "Boris Godunov"), Philipp II (Verdi - "Don Carlo"), Mephistopheles (Gounod - "Faust" & Boito - "Mephistopheles"), Ivan Susanin (Glinka - "La vita per lo zar"), Zaccaria (Verdi - "Nabucco"), Tsar Ivan (Rimsky-Korsakov - "Ivan Le Teribile"), Dosifei (Mussorgsky - "Khovanshchina"), Gomez da Silva (Verdi - "Ernani"), Fiesco (Verdi - "Simon Boccanegra"), Attila (Verdi - "Attila"), Padre Guardiano (Verdi - "La forza del destino"), Galitzky and Kontchak (Borodin - "Prince Igor") and others. He also has an enormous discography - studio recordings of 8 operas ("Don Carlo" and "Boris Godunov" twice each) and numerous live recordings (radio or stage performances). He was much admired as song singer and he recorded more 200 Russian songs by Mussorgsky (all his 63 songs - no one did this before), Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Glinka, Borodin, Cui, Balakirev as well as traditional songs.

A grand performer on stage, Christoff had difficult off-stage relations with fellow singers and producers, which sometimes grew into public scandals. In 1955 he fell out with Maria Callas during the performances of Medea at the Rome Opera and in 1961 his contract with La Scala was terminated after an open conflict with fellow Bulgarian Nicolai Ghiaurov whom Christoff blamed for collaborating with the Bulgarian communist regime.

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Information for Boris Christoff