Teufel Monch Und Zar

All I can say, that this Set contains all the Great Recordings of the Century.In this 10 CD Set are 112 selections of opera arias, duets and songs, recorded in Studio conditions, Live performances and Radio broadcasts. In each recording Boris Christoff displays his great stamp of authenticity while singing superbly and in addition to .it has a unique talent for great characterization of each role, which is altogether amazing.According to various sources Boris Christoff's repertory consists of 120 operatic roles. Christoff sung Boris Godunov no less than 600 times and he appeared as King Philipp in Verdi's Don Carlo more than 420 times. Other major roles in his repertory were several operas by Verdi, Wagner and of course several of the Russian operas. His total number of performances in opera and in concerts must be very impressive.No libretto and no synopsis. The contents with the Track numbers and timing are printed on the back of each cardboards. It is a popular Edition, or in other words modest Edition, but the musical values are incomparable and are a must for every serious music lover. As I wrote at the beginning : Boris Christoff 's likes appears only once in the Century. Highly Recommended.

Christoff is unique. Buy this for the extensive Faust excerpts.

Boris Christoff was a great Italian-trained basso cantanto. The quality of his voice in its best period (ca. 1949-1958) captured by this collection was such that even after hearing his weakest performances and comparing them to finer interpretations of his colleagues, one can long after Christoff's exceptional timbre. There were however other fine basses in his day - Nicola Rossi-Lemeni  Legendary Voices: Nicola Rossi-Lemeni , Cesare Siepi and Raffaele Arie  Legendary Performances , not to mention heavier bass voices as Giulio Neri, Luciano Neroni  Four Famous Italian Basses  and Mark Reizen.Record labels and opera houses honoured Christoff, and he left lots of studio and live recordings, which have been reissued many times. For instance, Russian songs in this compilations are also available here  Boris Christoff: Melodies Russes [Russian Songs ] and here  Songs & Dances , while his early recordings of Italian and Russian arias are included in his CDs on Preiser  Legendary Voices: Boris Christoff and EMI labels. This compilation is good and representative, and it is great to get 10 CDs of a great singer for a budget price.The listener will find many real gems here, including Mussorgsky'songs (CD 8-10), his portrayal of Filippo II (entire CD 6), Dossifei's aria (CD 3, track 6). As for Christoff's relative weaknesses, he was not exactly the best singer for costume roles or roles he perceived as costume, e.g. Zaccaria (CD 4), Varlaam or Varangian Guest (CD 3, tracks 2 and 7). He also occasionally recorded roles that did not suite his voice type, as Khonchak or Pimen (CD 3, tracks 5 and 8).Christoff was hailed as the most prominent Boris Godunov of his generation (see CD 2), but I will rate Chaliapin and Reizen  Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov (March 1948) (Mark Reizen Heritage, Vol. 2)  higher. He was also a famous Mefistofeles in Gounod's opera (CD 1, tracks 1-8): the demonic side is there, but to my ear he occasionally lacks subtlety. So for these two roles I would go back to Chaliapin and Marcel Journet. Maybe it is an aberration of mine, but I find Christoff's early recordings of Boito's Mefistofele (CD 1, tracks 8-9) more promising, though his voice surely fitted the Gounod role better - the `Son lo spirito che nega (CD 1, track 9) is sung in a slow tempo and does not overwhelm with an impetus characteristic of Giulio Neri. Neri's voice is heard on CD 6 (tracks 5 & 7) in ensembles from `Don Carlo'.There are no obvious drawbacks. The sound is generally good (or acceptable). I wish the compilers included Christoff's beautiful recordings of Rachmaninov's songs, but one cannot get everything. Christoff had an affinity with the Russian art songs, and in his best performances his accent (problems with palatalized consonants and /shch/, occasional wrong forms) does not spoil the magic of his singing.