San Francisco's Coup

The San Francisco Opera, second to Manhattan's Metropolitan in rank, is second to none in discovering and importing good foreign singers.*Last week it pulled a double coup, gave U.S. listeners their first chance to hear famed Bulgarian Basso Boris Christoff and beauteous Turkish Soprano Leyla Gencer. Gencer, loved at first sight, was the modest and moving star of Zandonai's rarely heard Francesco, da Rimini; Christoff, playing his temperament to the hilt, was almost the ruination of Boris Godunov.

With Christoff, the trouble began during the first orchestral rehearsal. The trouble: no Christoff. He was sulking in stubborn silence in his dressing room, apparently because he did not like Leo Kerz's stage design. Twenty minutes later, Director Kurt Herbert Adler had moved some furniture and props--Christoff likes to play in profile instead of facing the audience--and the rehearsal went on. The actual performance was given in a strange melange of heavy, traditional furniture and Kerz's stark, modern setting, framed in 14 big, black, red-tipped vertical daggers; neither set nor performance as a whole was very convincing.

But when Boris began to sing, it was another matter. His voice was strong, resonant and of uncanny clarity. He began his long prayer deliberately, never let his voice reach its maximum power (he saved that for his death scene), indulged in no gasps or sobs, nevertheless developed a painful pitch of feeling as he reached the nadir, almost whispering "Gospodi!" ("Oh my God!"). Not a handclap broke the hushed silence when he finished. Christoff's Boris is no lunatic, but a sensitive, conscience-stricken man whose terror at his infanticide finally cracks his sanity. The audience loved him. but not quite so much as he seemed to expect.

Self-approving behavior comes naturally to 37-year-old Basso Christoff. The King of Bulgaria heard him sing 14 years ago and told him that it would redound to the glory of Bulgaria if he were to become famous as a singer throughout the world. To see that he did, the King gave the young man a royal scholarship, sent him to Italy for study and experience. Christoff fled to Salzburg when the Germans occupied Italy ("not wanting to get in any kind of a war"), later returned and applied for Italian citizenship and married an Italian girl. In 1946 Christoff made his Rome debut (as Colline in La Boheme) and three years later achieved Boris, which had been his musical ambition since the time he saw the opera as a child. When the Met's Rudolf Bing invited him to New York in 1950, his visa was denied--Christoff never learned why. This time, the combination of eased diplomatic relations with Communist nations and some careful spadework by the San Francisco Opera officials did the trick.

Slender Leyla Gencer, 29, moved about San Francisco's rehearsal stage followed by approving smiles, inviting glances and, among the company's Italian singers, audible coos. The heiress of a family of Turkish landowners, she gave up the idea of developing her voice when she married a banker. But in 1948 he encouraged her to study at the conservatory. Today she is diva of the Turkish State Opera in Ankara and is known across Europe.

She was tapped for the San Francisco engagement sound unheard, after Director Adler scheduled Francesca, then learned that his star soprano (Renata Tebaldi) would be unable to take the role after all. San Francisco listeners found the old (1914) opera dull and static in spite of its lush arias, but Soprano Gencer was something to hear. Her voice is big, warm and beautiful, and capable of surging emotional power. The U.S. will be hearing more of her.

*Among them: Soprano Renata Tebaldi, Tenor Mario del Monaco, Basso Nicola Rossi-Lemeni.

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