Robert Fritz.

Fritz Reiner was one of the foremost conductors of his time. Crowning his long career in Europe and America was the decade from 1954 to 1963 as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra an illustrious partnership that ranks along such other historical tenures as Karajan's in Berlin, Szell's in Cleveland and Bernstein's in New York.
Luckily for posterity, Reiner's legendary interpretations at the helm of the Chicago Symphony which no less than Igor Stravinsky called "the most precise and flexible orchestra in the world" were captured on record by RCA Victor. Now for the first time ever, they are being issued together in a single Sony Classical box set of 63 re-mastered CDs.

This performance, taped at La Scala on opening night, 1963, is a breathtaking example of true verismo performing. […] The sound is surprisingly good, but certainly not up to modern standards. I still love the Scotto/Domingo/Levine [[i]Cavalleria rusticana] set on RCA–but sorry, all other recorded performances of this work pale beside this one. Robert Levine, Classicstoday.com.