Though the inevitable snags of live recording come out the more in the CD format—stage-noises, intrusive applause, odd balances—the gains far outweigh any irritations. With the chorus as protagonist in Act 1—Mussorgsky's Boris one of Puccini's influences there, I have long felt—the extra clarity and sense of presence on CD is particularly important. The chorus here sounds cleaner with no congestion, and this is as impressive a live recording of a heavily-textured opera as one could want. Anyone who prefers listening to opera live can safely choose this, for not only is it a fine line-up of soloists, Maazel is here at his warmest and most sensuously persuasive, not for a moment chilly in the way that he can be in the studio.
In vividness, clarity and immediacy of sound, however, this cannot rival Mehta's studio recording, which in its new CD format brings an astonishing tribute to Decca engineering in the early seventies, when it was originally made. As a performance too I prefer it, not only for the unexpected but inspired casting of Sutherland as Turandot but for its relative lack of idiosyncratic speeds. Maazel, like Karajan on DG is, at times, perversely slow, as at the very start. The other snag is the same as on the other CD Puccini set from CBS, of La rondine (see above), the total absence of bands or even indexing. Like the Decca set, but not Karajan's DG, the three acts are comfortably squeezed on two CDs instead of three LPs. As on the Decca the break comes immediately before Turandot's entry on ''In questa reggia'', but where the Decca is generously banded, it is infuriating to try and find the place on the CBS.'