Boris Christoff
CD 1 [70:19] Italian Opera
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756
– 1791)
Don Giovanni
1. Madamina! Il catalogo e questo [5:35]
Antonio CALDARA (1670
– 1736)
2. Come raggio di sol [3:12]
Vincenzo BELLINI (1801 – 1835)
Norma
3. Ite sul colle [10:13]
La sonnambula
4. Il mulino! Il fonte! … Vi ravviso [5:00]
Giuseppe VERDI (1813 – 1901)
Nabucco
5. Sperate, o figli! … D’Egitto la sui lidi
[4:58]
6. Oh chi piange? … Del futuro
nel bujo discerno [4:47]
La forza del destino
7. Il santo nome di Dio [6:54]
Simon Boccanegra
8. A te l’estremo addio … Il lacerate spirito [5:53]
Ernani
9. Che mai veggio! … Infelice … L’offeso
onor [6:50]
Don Carlo
10. Ella giammai m’amo … Dormiro sol [9:14]
Arrigo BOITO (1847
– 1918)
Mefistofele
11. Ave Signor! [3:55]
12. Son lo spirito che nega [3:48]
CD 2 [71:56]
Russian Opera
Modest MUSSORGSKY (1839
– 1881)
Boris Godunov
1. Prologue: Coronation Scene [10:53]
2. Act 1. Pimen’s monologue [5:52]
3. Act 1. Varlaam’s song [2:33]
4. Act 2. Boris’s monologue [6:05]
5. Act 2. Clock scene [3:58]
6. Act 4. Farewell and Death of Boris [11:46]
Khovanshchina
7. Dosifey’s aria [6:22]
Nikolai RIMSKY-KORSAKOV (1844 – 1908)
Sadko
8. Song of the Viking Merchant [3:46]
The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh
9. O vain illusion [4:27]
Pyotr TCHAIKOVSKY (1840
– 1893)
Eugene Onegin
10. Everyone knows love on earth [4:55]
Alexander BORODIN (1833
– 1887)
Prince Igor
11. Prince Galitsky’s aria [3:52]
12. Konchak’s aria [7:23]
CD 3 [72:25]
Russian Songs and Sacred Music
Alexander SEROV (1820
– 1871)
1. Shrove Tuesday [4:39]
Traditional Songs
2. Song of the lumberjacks [5:00]
3. The Bandore [3:29]
4. Down Peterskaya Street [2:13]
5. Going down the Volga [3:40]
6. The lonely autumn night [5:22]
7. Psalm 137. By the waters of Babylon [5:25]
Mikhail STROKINE (1832 – 1887)
8. Prayer to St. Simeon [2:36]
Pavel CHESNOKOV (1877
– 1944)
9. Lord have mercy on our people [4:00]
Trad.
10. The song of the twelve robbers [5:56]
Alexander GRECHANINOV (1864
– 1956)
11. Litany [6:02]
Trad.
12. Siberian prisoner’s song [4:17]
Modest MUSSORGSKY
Songs and Dances of Death
13. No 4 Field-Marshal Death [4:55]
14. The Grave [3:44]
15. Softly the spirit flies up to heaven [3:15]
LISHKIN (? - ?)
16. She mocked [3:32]
Trad
17. Song of the Volga boatmen [4:20]
Boris Christoff (bass)
rec. CD 1 Tracks 1(1952), 9 (1951) – Orchestra/Fistoulari; CD
1 Track 2 (1952) - Gerald Moore, piano; CD 1 Tracks 3-8 (1955)
- Orchestra and Chorus of the Opera House, Rome/Gui; CD 1 Track
10 (1950) - Philharmonia Orchestra/Karajan; CD 1 Track 11 (1949)
- Philharmonia Orchestra/Dobrowen; CD 1 Track 12 (1949) - Philharmonia
Orchestra/Malko; CD 2 Tracks 1, 4, 5 (1952) — excerpts from
the complete opera.; Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion
Francaise/Dobrowen; CD 2 Track 2 (1949) - Philharmonia Orchestra/Malko;
CD 2 Track 3 (1949) - Philharmonia Orchestra/Karajan; CD 2 Tracks
6 (1949), 7, 8, 11, 12 (1950) - Philharmonia Orchestra and;
Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden/Dobrowen; CD
2 Tracks 9, 10 (1952) - Philharmonia Orchestra/Schuchter; CD
3 Tracks 1-11 (1954) - Feodor Potorzhinski Russian Choir; CD
3 Tracks 12-15 (1951), 16 (1952) - Gerald Moore, piano; CD 3
Track 17 (1952) - Philharmonia Orchestra/Dobrowen;
NIMBUS PRIMA VOCE NI7961/3 [3 CDs: 70:19 + 71:56
+ 72:25]
This tripartite entrant from Nimbus divides neatly into discrete
repertoire areas. The first disc is given over to Italian opera,
the second to Russian, and the third to Russian songs and sacred
music. It really couldn’t be neater, or simpler. The recordings
are from 1949-55.
There are numerous highlights, though the first disc cheats
a touch opening with Madamina! Yes, it’s sung in Italian,
but … Christoff however proves a Mozartean characteriser of
great avuncularity. He is personable, human, neither a predator
by proxy nor a buffo. It’s a jolt to go back to Caldara after
this, but we do, and to Gerald Moore who accompanies neatly.
The performance of Come raggio di sol is sonorous and
grave if a touch overdone. But the sequence which follows really
puts us on the right path. The ten minute span of the excerpt
from Norma – this and the next five tracks are all with
Gui in 1955 – attests to his great powers of nobility and dramatic
characterisation. Nabucco confirms his wholly unhistrionic
command of the Italian repertoire and his La Forza del Destino
extract reprises these qualities whilst adding a quotient of
perfectly gauged dramatic incision. The choir adds its own lustre
to this extract into the bargain. Note too that the extracts
from Simon Boccanegra and Don Carlo do not derive
from the complete sets with Gobbi, under Santini in 1957 and
’54 respectively, but are from recordings with Gui and Karajan.
Irrespective of this they and all the others crackle with the
fervour and intense passion which Christoff brought to all his
roles.
The second disc cannily creates a composite of extracts from
Boris. The Prologue, Boris’ Monologue from Act II, and
the Act II Clock scene all come from the complete Paris recording
with Dobrowen in 1952. The interpolations come successively
via one-offs with Malko (1949), Karajan (1949) and Dobrowen
again but this time with the Philharmonia in 1949. The inescapable
model here, inevitably, is Chaliapin, but acknowledging such
a towering and authoritative presence is not in any way to diminish
the individuality or power of Christoff’s haunting and magnetic
singing. It says something for the allure of his voice that
the succeeding arias are not eclipsed in the memory by the psychologically
acute penetration of his Boris. The Rimsky is especially compelling
and sustained with marvellous control, but all these extracts,
brief though they can sometimes be, attest to Christoff’s immense
powers of communicative esprit.
The final disc serves up 17 songs and examples of sacred music
either with Moore once again, or with The Feodor Potorzhinski
Choir. Predominately slow and sonorous, these are etched with
gravity, depth and great feeling. Things do lighten for the
‘exhausted’ humour of Down Peterskaya Street but the
dominant ethos of solemnity and powerful intercession provides
a sequence of concentrated piety. A real highlight is Going
down the Volga in which the chorus provides near peerless
support for Christoff. Of the items with Gerald Moore in 1951-52,
the Siberian prisoner’s song is imbued with an almost
Chaliapinesque sense of despair and loss.
It ends a three CD set of breadth, but one that rightly draws
attention to three individual strains in Christoff’s art. The
booklet documentation is thorough, the transfers good.
Jonathan Woolf
see also reviews by Ralph
Moore and Goran
Forsling
Boris Christoff (bass) with piano acc, orchestras and choir 
