19 Facts About Boris Christoff

Boris Christoff was born in Plovdiv on 18 May 1914 to parents Kyryl Christov and Rayna Teodorova.

Boris Christoff demonstrated early his singing talent and sang at the famous choir Gusla.

Boris Christoff continued singing in his spare time in the Gusla Chorus in Sofia, achieving an enormous success as the chorus soloist in 1940; he was singing at the choir of the St Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Sofia and the Academic Choir.

Thanks to a government grant, Christoff left in May 1942 for Italy where he was tutored for two years in the core Italian bass repertoire by the great baritone of an earlier generation, Riccardo Stracciari.

Boris Christoff took lessons in Wien, Prague and Salzbourg and had several guest appearances and recitals in Wien and Dresden.

Boris Christoff was released from it in May 1945 by the French troops.

Later, Boris Christoff Hristov made every effort to find this person, but to no avail.

Boris Christoff made his operatic debut as Colline in La boheme at Reggio Calabria on 12 March 1946.

In following years Boris 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.

Boris Christoff refused any further invitations to the Metropolitan and never appeared there.

Boris Christoff took an active part in the very work of creating the record.

Boris Christoff brought his career to an end with a final concert at the Accademia di Bulgaria in Rome on 22 June 1986.

Boris Christoff died in Rome in 1993 and his body was returned to Bulgaria, lay in repose in St Alexander Nevski Cathedral and was buried in section 46 of Sofia Central Cemetery.

Boris Christoff had an excellent voice with a distinctive dark tone.

Boris Christoff sang mostly in Verdi and the Russian repertoire, and was a refined performer of vocal chamber music.

Boris Christoff was much admired as song singer and he recorded more than 200 Russian songs by Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Glinka, Borodin, Cui, Balakirev as well as traditional songs, mostly with piano accompaniment.

The ambitious Ghiaurov, whose brother Kostadin Ghiaurov was a senior functionary of the Bulgarian Communist Party, began to speak out against him and call him a "fascist", and Boris Christoff blamed him for collaborating with the Bulgarian communist regime.

The communist regime's hatred for Boris Christoff who was not even allowed to go to Bulgaria for his father's funeral pushed Ghiaurov further into rivalry with Boris Christoff.

Boris Christoff was the brother-in-law of the Italian baritone Tito Gobbi.