The legendary Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin was born in 1873 and is widely regarded as the greatest bass singer of his generation. He possessed a magisterial voice of great power and range, and was an unrivalled singing-actor. A major exponent of the Russian repertoire, his operatic portrayals, notably of the title role in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, exerted a strong influence upon subsequent generations of singers. This two-disc celebration of the art of Chaliapin covers both his acoustic and later electrical recordings, and includes examples of all the major elements of his extensive repertoire. They include Italian French and Russian, operatic repertoire, Russian songs (Rachmaninoff spoke of Chaliapin’s ‘limitless and phenomenal talent’), and folk-songs, of which the Song of The Volga Boatmen is probably the most popular. Of particular interest in this new issue are the commercial recordings of excerpts from Mefistofele and Boris Godunov, made at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, during performances in 1926 and 1928, when Chaliapin’s magnetic stage presence comes across with full force.