DON CARLOS OPERA CAST - PROGRAM SIGNED CIRCA 1958 CO-SIGNED BY: CARLO MARIA GIULINI, BORIS CHRISTOFF, GRE BROUWENSTIJN, JON VICKERS - HFSID 154202

DON CARLOS OPERA CAST: BORIS CHRISTOFF, CARLO MARIA GIULINI, GRE BROUWENSTIJN and JON VICKERS

The famous opera singers sign this Royal Opera House program for the performance of Don Carlos to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the opening of the theatre, signed in green and red ink

Program Signed: "Boris Christoff", "C M Giulini", "Gre Brouwenstijn" and "Jon Vickers" in green and red ink. 8½x12½. Two pages. A choir boy in his native Bulgaria, BORIS CHRISTOFF (1914-1993) left a successful career as a lawyer to study opera in Italy, where he reached stardom in the late 1940s. Until 1956, Christoff was denied entry into the US because his homeland had a communist regime, even while Bulgaria was refusing him permission to return home. A powerful performer on stage, Christoff carried on some well publicized disputes with other opera figures, including Maria Callas and Herbert von Karajan. Conductor CARLO MARIA GIULINI (1914-2005) began his interest in music as a child, learning to play viola at the age of five. His viola playing would later be used to supplement his family's income during the Great Depression, playing for the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. In 1940, Giulini won a conducting competition which allowed him to conduct the St. Cecilia orchestra, but was drafted into the Italian Army for World War II before his debut concert. When the war ended, he was able to resume his conducting, and by 1955 engaged himself in a 23 year association with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He also served as a music director of the Vienna Symphony and as principal conductor and Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. GRE BROUWENSTIJN (1915-1999) was a Dutch soprano singer whose stage career spanned from the early 1940s to the mid-1970s. Gre studied voice at the Amsterdam Muzieklyceum with Jaap Stroomenbergh, Boris Pelsky and Ruth Horna, and made her operatic debut in 1940 as the First Lady in The Magic Flute. Brouwenstijn was above all associated with the role of Leonore in Beethoven's Fidelio. She is considered one of the finest Leonores of her time, she performed the role to great acclaim at the Vienna State Opera, the Paris Opera, Stuttgart, Berlin, Amsterdam, Buenos Aires, London and Glyndebourne. In 1951 she made her debut at the Royal Opera House, Convent Garden as Aida, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli. In 1955 she sang Desdemona under the conduction of Rafael Kubelik. In 1958 Gre sang Elisabetta in a famous production of Don Carlos, conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini and designed by Luchino Visconti; that same year she sang Leonore at the Teatro Colon in a production of Fidelio, conducted by Thomas Beecham.JON VICKERS (1926-2015), born Jonathan Stewart Vickers was a Canadian heldentenor. In 1950 he awarded a scholarship to study opera at The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. In 1957 he joined London's Royal Opera House, Convent Garden Company. In 1960 Jon joined the Metropolitan Opera and became world famous due to a wide range of German, French and Italian roles and also for his powerful stage presence and thoughtful characterizations. In 1968 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada and thirty years later received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement, which is Canada's highest honor in the performing arts. Lightly toned, soiled and creased. Otherwise, fine condition.