Verdi: Don Carlo - Royal Opera House/Giulini (ROH Heritage)

Whether you decide to buy it will depend almost entirely on whether you can (and indeed want to) tolerate the rather distant sound in exchange for Tito Gobbi, Boris Christoff and Jon Vickers giving the performances of their lives.

I hate to say it, but although lavishly packaged and containing excellent bonus interviews in most cases, the Royal Opera House Heritage series is a bit on the pricey side considering the condition of the recordings. Yet it's worth parting with the pennies in this instance, because of its significance in the reception history of Verdi operas.

This is a genuinely historic occasion captured on disc: the first showing of the 1958 production of Verdi's Don Carlo by Luchino Visconti at Covent Garden that completely turned around the opera's fortunes. Had it not been for this production, it could have taken longer for the work to be fully appreciated. The daring of conductor Carlo Maria Giulini in bringing almost (but not quite) the whole score to the stage for the first time in decades resulted in a more complete experience that sparked the opera's revaluation and revival in the second half of the twentieth century.

Lord Harewood's fascinating interview on a bonus track of the CD vividly recreates the atmosphere of these performances, bringing home just how astonished people were by the power of the opera. He's also willing to make criticisms, for instance his wish that the Insurrection scene and the second verse of Elisabeth's aria to her servant had not been cut, which seems even more of a shame now that we're used to hearing them in modern performances.

It surprised me just how impressive Jon Vickers is in the title role on this recording, because he'd not previously been my idea of Don Carlos, somehow. Yet the control of his voice is such that his rendition is entirely convincing. It's hard to think of another tenor who's brought both drama and beauty to the character's music in subsequent recordings: Carreras was too light, Domingo didn't quite have the high notes, Pavarotti's voice is beautiful but bland. For this reason alone, the recording has to be heard.

Tito Gobbi's Rodrigo is inevitably special; less precise than on his EMI recording but more electric due to the live performance. Surprisingly, I found Boris Christoff's assumption of the role of the King more sinister (and as a result more impressive) here than in the studio recording (where he appears opposite Gobbi).

One track alone out of the three CDs makes the ride worth the price of admission: the Act IV quartet, when Philip, Rodrigo, Eboli and Elisabeth come together in the most desperately emotional ensemble of the entire opera. Remarkably, the passage where the Princess and the Queen sing in octaves is pitch-perfect for once, so that the moment when the whole quartet often falls apart is actually very strong; in consequence, it's the best recording of the passage currently available.

And immediately following this, Fedora Barbieri offers a suitably grief-stricken performance of Eboli's Act IV aria, O don fatale. Elsewhere, though, I found her the weakpoint of the performance; she spoils the Act III trio and has serious intonation problems in the trills of the Veil aria. Gré Brouwenstijn is strong as Elisabeth, especially in the Act V aria, but for me she's no rival to Mirella Freni's more compelling rendition in the Karajan recording.

According to Lord Harewood, Michael Langdon was a last-minute replacement as the Inquisitor, and he's marvellously menacing. Most of the other minor roles are adequate, some less so. Giulini's conducting of The Covent Garden Orchestra and Chorus (as they were then known) is sometimes woefully imbalanced – stage and pit are often as much as a beat apart in this hard-driven performance (especially the auto-da-fé). But that's to put a minor criticism before the main point, which is that the Italian maestro's love for this opera is evident throughout his gripping interpretation.

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