Listen to a Sample:

It is the true miracle of opera than you can devote decades of your life to it and still come across something entirely new and ravishing that invites you into a sound world hitherto unexplored.  Somehow or other I had never heard Le Coq d'or before coming across this recording.  The score has all the color and invention that you would expect form Rimsky-Korsakov with an enhanced exoticism that I did not know he was capable of.  Boris Christoff sings the part of King Dodon and sounds appropriately Kingly (he certainly had enough monarchical experience on stage.)  Gianna D'Angelo is the Queen of Shemakhan.  Her voice is lush and she manages a magnificent ethereal high d in her aria (hear the sample below.)  The sound is excellent.

OD 10596-2