COMPOSERS: Strauss
LABELS: Sony
WORKS: Salome
PERFORMER: Montserrat Caballé, Sherrill Milnes, Regina Resnik, Richard Lewis; London Symphony Orchestra/Erich Leinsdorf
CATALOGUE NO: 88697579112
A Salome starring Montserrat Caballé might seem as unlikely as the casting of the ladies in the above Così, but it works even better. The voice sounds youthful, gleaming, opulent at the top; maybe at first Caballé doesn’t pull out the nasty stops, but those come later, in league with Lewis’s desperate but notewise spot-on Herod. Leinsdorf’s conducting has both transparency and pace. A top recommendation, and I’d never heard it before. David Nice