This is an important and profoundly satisfying issue. It houses what was hitherto a rarity: the first recording (apart from a 1936 soundtrack for a film) of many by the Bolshoi of Eugene Onegin, and one not surpassed by its successors. Issued in the Soviet Union on 40 shellac sides, it was originally available only in the country of origin. After the war it was briefly available on American LPs in atrocious sound and with some passages that have happily been re-discovered omitted. Now, thanks to the tireless labours of Ward Marston, it can be heard in reasonable sound for its day, any faults easily forgotten in enjoying the great qualities of the performance.

It also enshrines a performing tradition which is now virtually lost. As with the German, French and Italian styles of the pre-war era, it evinces an individuality of accent and phrase particular to the country concerned. In this case the singers produce lyrical poetry of a peculiarly Russian, elegiac kind by treating words and music in a conversational manner: instead of declaiming, they ‘speak’ the text, creating genuine music drama. The voices, never overblown in the manner common today, are used in a true exchange of feeling and emotion.

At the head of the well-integrated cast, singing as a true ensemble, is Yelena Kruglikova, about whom little is known and Tully Potter tells us nothing in his otherwise informative note. From a vulnerable, demure girl to the tragic figure of the final scene, she is about as good as they come, surpassing even the young Vishnevskaya in the more familiar Bolshoi set of 1955 (Melodiya 12/94 – nla). Her Letter Scene is among the most beautifully and subtly sung of all, capturing Tatyana’s impulsive, doubting, then resolved, transfixed state of mind. In the final scene you feel palpably the torment in Tatyana’s mind, and her sense of despair in her solo about happiness being so close for her and Onegin. That part is taken with almost as much perception by Panteleimon Nortsov. His voice, lighter than that of baritones who take the part today, is the precise instrument to purvey bored, suave insouciance before moving urgently to obsessed love as he re-encounters the woman he cruelly disdained.

The almost legendary Ivan Kozlovsky gives Lensky the benefit of his attractively reedy tone, typical of Russian tenors of his day, and his marvellous range of dynamics is used to convey all the youth’s poetic nature, so that his self-indulgence over note values and rubato can easily be excused. Maxim Mikhailov, a reigning Russian bass of the day, sings a sonorous, eloquent Gremin. Elizaveta Antonova’s lively, firm-voiced Olga and Vera Makarova’s lovable Nurse are just further reasons for hearing this reading. The appealing Triquet (Sergei Ostroumov) sings one verse of his couplets in French, one in Russian, as was then the practice in Soviet theatres.

Alexander Melik-Peshayev conducts a performance imbued with poetic lyricism and care for detail. Oddly, two crucial parts, the Letter Scene and finale, are assigned to Alexander Orlov, though that in fact works well, as he is the more dramatically expressive interpreter. Orchestral and choral contributions are exemplary in executing a score that here sounds as persuasive as it should. Much as I love the Boris Khaikin set, under the spell of this riveting version I recommend it as the one to have among historic sets.