A fastidious ear will find things to complain about in the Solti version on Decca, but the shortcomingsof this Bolshoi recording are obvious and inescapable. The recorded sound comes first because it is a factor throughout: unsatisfactory in balance, harsh and edgy in quality. The orchestral playing varies: sometimes precise and alert but all too often frayed and (horrid word) provincial. The singing varies too, from the excellent (Nesterenko) to the grimly tolerable (Avdeyeva); but that would matter less if the Tatiana (Milashkina) were acceptable and she really is not. By comparison, Solti's cast has a more imaginative approach, and his Tatiana (Teresa Kubiak), mature and Tosca-like as she is, sounds like the embodiment of youth compared with Milashkina.
Yuri Mazurok is an infuriating Onegin. Perhaps Onegin should infuriate, possibly even in this way; but it's maddening to hear a singer who has exactly (and how rarely this is true) the right vocal quality and who fails so repeatedly to bring the character to life. For timbre, definition, ease in the high tessitura, he is admirable: at times he makes you think of Battistini or Schlusnus. But, just as on stage, in my experience, he lacks presence; only the most overtly emotional phrase will induce him to make his singing expressive. Atlantov's Lesky—he and Mazurok, incidentally, sing their parts also on the heavy-handed Rostropovich recording (EMI on LP—nla)—is a likeable fellow but not much of a poet. Still, the large, penetrative voice carries more than a hint of the remarkable Otello-to-be and is often exciting to hear. Nesterenko provides quite the finest singing in the opera, as does Ghiaurov on the Solti set. Milashkina, once one of Russia's best lyric sopranos, is here uneven and worn: better in Act 3, where her performance carries conviction, but distinctly regretable earlier. Ermler seems to have a sensible and sensitive view of the score, but that won't transform the material. Solo voices are recorded very close and are badly balanced in ensemble.
One final complaint: the year 1987 is all we find by way of date. The original Gramophone review appeared in February 1980 and the recording, from Melodiya, was made in the mid 1970s. I do believe it wrong and misleading that some reissues do not clearly state the date of recording; doubly wrong when another date, namely that of present publication, is given and which is quite likely to cause confusion and give rise to mistaken assumptions.'