For all his undeniable precision and discipline, I still find Toscanini’s tempi rushed and unyielding and his lack of rubato a chilly turnoff.

While the three leads do sing the material well, there has been a glut of recordings since then which are more complete and at least as well sung.

It was many decades ago that I first listened to the Solti Ring Cycle.

Karajan’s 1959 Aïda was once treated like gospel, a wall of plush Vienna Philharmonic sound and star power that critics dutifully genuflected before.

The Solti recording of Bohème is completely miscast.

The recent highly hyped studio recording of Puccini’s Turandot left me greatly disappointed.

All in all, an ill-advised venture.

It’s always surprised me how so many performances of the major Brecht/Weill collaborations seem to have zero clue of how to handle either Weill’s music.

I don’t know if it’s overrated because I don’t think anyone rates it, but for pure party disc joy not much beats this 2018 recording of the original 1847 version of Verdi‘s Macbeth.

This is the classic Onegin and there’s much to love, especially from Khaikin‘s sensitive conducting and Lemeshev‘s ideal Lensky.