The new batch of recordings from the CBS/Sony and RCA Victor catalogues includes four albums which have never appeared on CD before (Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle, Massenet’s La Navarraise, Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci and Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana).

This latest release in the ‘Home of the Great Singers’ series features some unusual repertoire as well as pivotal recordings from the New York Metropolitan Opera in its postwar heyday.

A few reviews for this outstanding set include: “This is undoubtedly the best performance and re-cording of the opera we have had” (Gramophone on Orfeo ed Euridice); “The orchestra plainly relishes every detail of the score, and the recording does full justice to the finesse of Massenet’s brilliant orchestration” (Gramophone on the LSO in La Navarraise). BBC Music Magazine also lauded “Mehta’s energising sense of pace and colour [and] consistently good orchestral playing” in Le nozze di Figaro.