Don Giovanni (Complete Opera recorded live in 1956)

"Indeed this goes close to the top of recommended versions of this oft-recorded piece. Mitropoulos had taken over this production following Furtwangler's death and might have played an important part in Salzburg history had he not died in 1960 (his 1958 Elektra there was highly regarded). He conducts a crisper, more dramatic, reading than his predecessor (though one less metaphysical), fateful in its attitude, tempos finely judged and related to each other, and obtaining the kind of playing from the orchestra for which he was famed. Yet his performance quite avoids the tendency towards the headlong approach of some period-instrument interpretations. Thus he runs a neat path between the old romantic approach as represented by Furtwangler and Klemperer and the swift approach best heard from Norrington. In many respects his version calls to mind the roughly contemporaneous set under Krips with some of the same singers, though it doesn't always have the mercurial quality of the Giulini.
What gives this set its overriding distinction is the singing. With every member of a superb cast in best voice, it is hard to think of a more consistently sung version."
(Gramophone)