"It's a travesty that this recording has existed, with its excellent live sound quality and dream-team cast, in a vault (or a dingy basement) somewhere for the last 44 years. It's also a travesty that this performance contains cuts. If two travesties weren't enough, there's a third: Orfeo still refuses to include a printed libretto.
This recording makes an excellent companion to the 1959 Sawallisch studio effort on EMI (which, incidentally, is uncut and includes a libretto). Each recording is utter perfection in its own way, and both have beyond-exemplary casts. Documents like this are solid proof that postwar casts are unequalled in this repertoire. (May my prejudices be clear...)"