With its odd, brilliant mixture of interpersonal and political relationships, Don Carlos is a very hard opera to put across, and this 1970 Vienna performance of the four-act version is partially successful. Franco Corelli never recorded the role of Carlos commercially so this is instantly valuable; and 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 even if she never quite wins us over the way Tebaldi or Caballé do. Eberhard Waechter is surprisingly Italianate as Posa and Shirley Verrett almost walks away with the whole show with her fiery Eboli. Nicolai Ghiaurov is at his grandest as poor 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. Perhaps this isn't anyone's only Don Carlos, but it's a very interesting one nonetheless.

--Robert Levine