Reissues

Beethoven Fidelio Warner 9029573753 (2003) 110:15 mins (2 discs) Simon Rattle’s performance was recorded live in concert following staged performances at the 2003 Salzburg Easter Festival. The result is oddly cold and unengaging, the main roles disappointingly cast. ★★ Handel Orlando Pan Classics PC 10392 (2008) 156:54 mins Recorded live in Tourcoing, Handel’s opera forms a memorial to Baroque specialist Jean-claude Malgoire, who died this year, though the sound is indifferent and the performance uneven. ★★★ Musorgsky Boris Godunov Eloquence 482 6883 (1955) 156:34 mins (2 discs) This Belgrade State Opera performance of the Rimsky-korsakov edition is adequately conducted by Kreshimir Baranovich and adequately sung, but not much more than that, and equally hampered by limited sound. ★★ Musorgsky Khovanshchina Eloquence 482 6893 176:28 mins (3 discs)

Another of the 1955 Belgrade Decca series, again conducted by Kreshimir Baranovich and once more in Rimsky-korsakov’s edition, Khovanshchina is more skilfully recorded than Boris though the music-making is on a similar level. ★★★