Cavalleria Rusticana
Jussi Bjoerling is the one who makes the magic happen in thisCavalleria Rusticanawith a finely worked-out profile of Turiddu, as well  as some matchless singing. Zinka Milanov also sings beautifully, but she will  never convince anyone that she is a simple Sicilian peasant girl who has been  seduced with a false promise of marriage, impregnated, and disdainfully  abandoned by a tenor who hardly even bothers pretending to be nice. The rest of  the cast comes across well--notably Robert Merrill--and Renato Cellini does a  polished (too polished?) job on the podium. Herbert von Karajan's chief  advantage in competition with this set is that his sound is technically much  better. Cellini's big advantage (other than Bjoerling) is that you don't have to  buyI Pagliaccito getCavalleria Rusticana.--Joe McLellan