Verdi: Don Carlo
Tenor Franco Corelli never recorded the role of Don Carlo commercially, so this release is instantly valuable. Indeed, the tenor is in magnificent voice: pungent, emotionally forward, thrilling, and only occasionally sloppy. His Elisabetta is Gundula Janowitz, hardly a Verdi soprano, but she makes some very beautiful sounds nonetheless. Eberhard Wächter is surprisingly Italianate as Posa, while Shirley Verrett almost walks away with the whole show with her fiery Eboli. Nicolai Ghiaurov is at his grandest as Philip II, and his scene with the terrifying Grand Inquisitor of Martti Talvela will take your breath away. Horst Stein leads a not always tidy but exciting reading.--Robert Levine