This is certainly a version of Aida employing big-scale voices, but if you're to enjoy them you have to put up with some pretty coarse and unsteady singing, in particular from the Aida and Radames (Nikolov once sung that role at Covent Garden), both fairly rough on the ears. The most worthwhile of the interpreters are Milcheva and Ghiuselev, who have both become reasonably well known in the West. As Amneris, the commanding Milcheva is really out to slay her audience in her jealous outbursts. Though she is a bit unrelenting in the use of her chest voice, she certainly makes her mark in Act ~I don't think you'll hear her music delivered with such earthy panache on any rival version—but it's all a bit unsubtle. The baritone intones Amonasro's imprecations with a certain rude authority. The conductor contributes. to the rather vulgar feeling conveyed by the whole affair.
All in all this is the kind of performance you would be quite pleased to hear on a visit to Sofia but not one, even at bargain price, that stands up to the competition on CD, chiefly because it is compromised by its soprano and tenor. Besides, the 1971 recording seems at times to sound as if it was made in a swimming bath.'