Boris Christoff

 

From my teenage years, Boris Christoff had been one of my idols. Not only mine. He occupied a place in operatic life at least in Europe on a par with Callas, Di Stefano and his brother-in-law Tito Gobbi. I am sometimes shocked to realise that only Callas's name is still remembered by the general public. 

Boris Christoff has been described as one of the greatest singers of all time and that he was. When he appeared onstage he held the audience in the palm of his hand. Such was his magnetism that it was impossible to look anywhere else apart from him. He simply wouldn't allow it. Of course this was done with all sorts of tricks as well as his amazingly contrived appearance, his great acting and his remarkable voice and artistry. Clips and even a whole opera with Cristoff can be seen on YouTube. In some of these such as The Death of Boris (Boris Godunov) the effect of the grainy old film and ledd than HD sound is equal to the effect in the theatre. Something one cannot say of practically any other operatic artist, except Callas, maybe.

Boris's curtain calls were a speciality of his. He would come out with a look like thunder. One's immediate thought was 'what is wrong?' He ould stand there looking furious about something - maybe our applause wasn't fulsome enough? We would increase the volume until a flicker of a smile appeared at the corners of his mouth. Now the audience began to go wild with relief until a climax was reached with a full grin. Great success.

Christoff once said to me that the most difficult thing about his profession was to be Boris Christoff, or at least what the publich thought of as Boris Christoff. 

I have numerous stories about Boris. Everyone who ever met Boris has a story. He was hilarious, not always intentionally. His relationship with his wife Franca was a source of great amusement. She was the only person he feared. She would cackle like a witch and tell me 'Ha, ha - you are the Boris victim!'

One day, I received a call from Boris: 'Mr. Slotover, come to my hotel immediately.' Without waiting to ask whether he had had a heart attack or had suffered some other serious event, I jumped into my car and in 20 minutes was at the door of his room at the Savoy Hotel. I knocked at the door and there was Boris all dressed up with a carnation in his buttonhole. He looked surprised to see me. 'Ah yes, Mr. Slotover. I need a suitcase.'

Franca was in the background and propelled her husband through the door into my care with various pieces of advice.

Downstairs we walked a few feet along the Strand and came to a shop selling suitcases. A gentleman offered to show Boris some suitcases but Boris appeared to be more interested in others at the back of the shop where a young girl assistant enagged him in a long conversation. When this was over, we left the shop and I took him on to Fortnum and Mason where I seemed to emember they had a department selling suitcases. In those days, Fortnums had a pair of ancient lifts that required someone to work them. Two young women dressed in uniform fulfilled this task. Boris suddenly professed the deepest interest in the operation of these lifts and went up and down several times while asking questions all the time. 

The suitcases at Fortnums were not to his liking so it was on the Kensington High Street where similar scenarios were enacted as in the first instance, always involving long conversations with young women assistants. By now it was perfectly clear what was going on but I didn't really mind as the whole thing was a kind of theatre anyway.

The day came to an end when Boris went back to the first shop downstairs from the Savoy and bought the first suitcase he had seen.

Our relationship came to an end one day when Boris decided he would like me to pay his tax as part of our agreement.

 

La Scala c.1960

Don Carlo had a literally incredible cast including Boris Christoff as Filippo and Nikolai Ghiaurov as the Inquisitor. If you don't believe me, I still have the programme to prove it. The story goes that Christoff (who had left Bulgaria since before the war) had no idea who his fellow Bulgarian Ghiaurov was and when the began to rehearse together, Christoff noticed that Ghiaurov's voice was about twice as big as his. 

So he went to Ghiringhelli and said he felt sick and they would ahve to cancel the performance the next day. Ghiringhelli replied that they wouldn't need to cancel the performance because they had another who could sing Filippo. Christoff:

'Subito mi sento meglio.'

And indeed they appeared together in that performance which we witnesses. My impression was that Ghiaurov made Christoff sound like a tenor but Christoff acted Ghiaurov off the stage so at the end you couldn't say who was the greater artist. 

The other singers were Gencer, Simionato, Flaviano Labo (underrated pint-sized Bergonzi) and Bastianini, conductor Santini.

 

La Scala c.1960

Don Carlo had a literally incredible cast including Boris Christoff as Filippo and Nikolai Guiaurov as the Inquisitor. If you don't believe me, I still have the programme to prove it.

And indeed they appeared together in that performance which we witnessed. My impression was that Ghiaurov made Christoff sound like a tenor but Christoff acted Ghiaurov off the stage so at the end you couldn't say who was the greater artist. 

The other singers were Gencer, Simionato, Flaviano Labo (underrated pint-sized Bergonzi) and Bastianini, conductor Santini.