It
was originally intended that Ivan Petroff should become a lawyer,
and until he reached the age of 19 he carried out his father's wishes
and studied law in Vienna. Eventually however, he persuaded his parent
to allow him to visit Naples for three months with the idea that he
should take a course in Italian law.
While there,
instead of concentrating on his legal studies, he spent most of his
time taking singing lessons with the great Napolitan tenor Fernando
de Lucia who was most impressed with the baritone voice of his young
pupil and with his eagerness to study.
When it was time
for Petroff to return to Vienna, he traveled to his homeland Bulgaria
and interrupted his journey and stopped in Sofia where he gave a recital.
His parents were so astounded with his success and obvious talent,
that they agreed to allow him to return to Naples to continue his
musical studies.
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Ivan
Petroff (sometimes spelled Petrov). Picture taken from a Remington
cover and edited.
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In 1928 Petroff
made a successful debut in Bologna, Italy, in the opera 'The Barber
of Seville'. Fyodor Chaliapin heard this performance and engaged him
as principal baritone in his opera company for a number of years.
For Petroff this was a most valuable experience. During this period
he sang and acted over 50 roles.
After the death
of Chaliapin, Petroff came to the United States and became an American
citizen.
He has toured
with every major opera company in the United States, Canada and South
America.
(Part of the
text and photograph taken from Remington R-199-93)
Ivan Petroff
on Remington:
R-199-40: Il Pagliacci (Leoncavallo) - Vocal Highlights with
Anne La Pollo, Ivan Petroff, Gino Sarri, Bruno Donati, Orchestra of
the Maggio Musiale Fiorentina, the chorus of Teatro Communale, conducted
by Erasmo Giglia. This recording was later issued on the Masque label
(M 10013).
RLP-199-58/60:
Rigoletto (Verdi) with Orlandina Orlandini, Ivan Petroff, Gino
Sarri and Mario Frosini and conductor Erasmo Ghiglia. Released in
1952.
Warren De Motte says in his Long
Playing Record Guide: "Remington's forces know their way
around this score. They perform without distinction, albeit with competence
and the recording is fair."
Preiser records has transferred this performance onto CD. The reviewer
states that the sound is far beyond an acceptable level. The reason
is that the transfer of the original tape to the matrices for the
Remington discs was not too successful. Don Gabor often made a copy
of the original tapes, using a less sophisticated tape recorder, and
the tape with the dubbed recording was used as the source for cutting
the lacquer. So one could agree if the Preiser CD was done from those
tapes. But Preiser states that the recording was transferred to CD
using the original tapes. Original can mean either tape.
Remington discs do have less harshness if played back using a moving
magnet cartridge with a spherical diamond tip. For private use it
may be even better to use a ceramic or crystal pick up cartridge as
they were generally used in the nineteen fifties.
When transferring old tapes, be it of a piano, a violin, an orchestra
or a complete opera cast, technicians are often too eager to completely
clean up the signal, and often to such an extend that there is not
much naturalness left. The signal may be clean, but the music may
have lost much of its warmth and harmony and the performance loses
much of its original charm.
R-199-74/2
(2 LP) Cavalleria Rusticana (Mascagni) with Vassilka Petrova,
Eddy Ruhl, Ivan Petroff, Rina Benucci, Lidia Malani. Orchestra of
the Maggio Fiorentino and Chorus of the Teatro Communale and conductor
Erasmo Ghiglia. Released in May 1952.
R-199-93:
Ivan Petroff sings great baritone
arias. The orchestra of the Maggio Fiorentino is conducted by Erasmo
Ghiglia. These performances were previously released on Continental
107 and is listed in Schwann Long Playing Record Catalog, September
1950 edition.
R-199-103:
Excerpts from the complete Rigoletto recording. Released in 1953.
Preiser 20017
CD contains the Rigoletto recording and the recording of the arias.
Ivan
Petroff performed with Maria Callas, Kurt Baum and Giulietta Simionato
in 'Il Trovatore' in Mexico in 1950. And there is a recording of 'Macbeth'
with Astrid Varnay and conductor Vittorio Gui taped in 1951.
Rudolf
A Bruil - February 2002
Note:
Baritone Ivan Petroff should not be confounded with the Russian bass
Ivan Petrov who was born in 1920 in Irkutsk and is known for his outstanding
performance of Boris Godunov.
