Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov
If you are going to have a copy of Rimsky-Korsakov's revision of Mussorgsky'sBoris, this is probably the one to have, though there is also a lot to be said for Boris Christoff's tour de force in which he sings the opera's three big bass roles. Nicolai Ghiaurov and Galina Vishnevskaya are younger and vocally fresher than in their later recordings of the same roles, and Herbert von Karajan's conducting has (like so much of his work) a high-gloss polish that would be less appropriate for Mussorgsky's rough-hewn text than it is for Rimsky-Korsakov's smoother work.--Joe McLellan