Word: christoff
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Verdi: Simon Boccanegra (Victoria de los Angeles, Tito Gobbi. Giuseppe Cam-pora, Boris Christoff; Rome Opera House Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Gabriele Santini; Capitol-EMI, 3 LPs). Verdi constructed his stately, somber-hued monument to paternal love and loyalty midway in his career, saw it fail at the box office and later agreed with the public that it was a "monotonous and cold'' work. Nevertheless, he returned to it after 25 years and extensively revised it. Not often performed, the revised Boccanegra is a fascinating melange of early Verdian flamboyance and late Verdian depth. In this...
Such fighting words propelled Bing into the kind of operatic hassle usually reserved for prima donnas. San Francisco's Vienna-born Kurt Herbert Adler tore into Vienna-born Rudi Bing, pointed out that the San Francisco company has welcomed such artists as Tebaldi, Del Monaco, Christoff, Siminonato, Valletti, Gobbi, Schwarzkopf and Rysanek for their U.S. debuts, can boast a list of U.S. premieres that puts the Met to shame. Last week San Francisco gave the first U.S. stage performances of two short works by German Composer Carl Orff-Die Kluge and Carmina Burana. Other noted San Francisco firsts: Walton...
...Rome Opera, scene of Soprano Callas' celebrated walkout due to "lowering of the voice" (TIME, Jan. 13), the boards again groaned under the strain of artistic temperament. During a rehearsal of Verdi's Don Carlos, famed Bulgarian Basso Boris Christoff and Italian Tenor Franco Corelli craftily maneuvered to gain the coveted stage-center spot. By the time Act II's libretto called for Corelli to draw his sword in defiance of Christoff (who played Philip II, Don Carlos' father), both singers were ready to fight. They drew, and Verdi was forgotten as the prop swords swished...
Third item in this batch of operatic rarities: Arrigo Boïto's Mefistofele, newly recorded by RCA Victor on 2 LPs (with Boris Christoff, Giacinto Prandelli, Orietta Moscucci; Orchestra and Chorus of the Rome Opera conducted by Vittorio Gui). Known chiefly as a poet and mighty librettist (Verdi's Otello and Falstaff), Boïto always remained an interesting oddity as a composer; he premiered his version of Goethe's Faust at La Scala in 1868 only to see it booed off the stage after two performances because of its experimentation with Wagnerian techniques. Intellectually more...
...Segovia and Pianist Artur Rubinstein, linger in closeup on the intense face of Marian Anderson, share the lilt of Verdi's La Traviata with Victoria de los Angeles, stand amid the powerful climax of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, superbly acted and sung by Bulgaria's Boris Christoff. Festival showed, far more eloquently than in its first edition ten months ago, that TV can add to music a certain intimate magic, and even some musical values not available in concert halls. There are probably millions of viewers who find the wait between such shows too long, and would...