Hi everyone!  Does anybody know anything at all about the quality of
the following two Arkadia "Golden Age of Opera" recordings of Wagner's
"Lohengrin"? The reason I ask is that I have seen them on sale for the
absurdly low price of 8.99 - absurd, that is, unless the recording is
*exceptionally* bad!  Both were recorded in the 1940s at the Met, so the
sound may be questionable - but that said, record hiss has never bothered
me - what matters is the interpretation / quality of singing / number of
cuts (a particular problem in early 20th-century Wagner recordings, e.g.
cuts in Tristan and Isolde's Liebesnacht, etc.).  So here we go:

A 3CD set, ref. no GA2036, rel. Nov. 6th, 2000
Conductor: Erich Leinsdorf
Singers: Astrid Varnay, Kerstin Thorborg, Lauritz Melchior, Mack Harrell

A 2CD set, ref. no GA2020, rel. Jun. 9th, 2000
Conductor: Erich Leinsdorf
Singers: Elisabeth Rethberg, Lauritz Melchior, Emanuel List, Leonard Warren

Are either of the two worth buying?

Sam Kemp