ANNA KARENINA

Released to coincide with a new film version and featuring one of its stars, this recording compresses the original a little too much. We get the entire story of Anna's tragic adultery and the subplot of Levin's search for meaningful love and work. But the distinctive thematic material and Russian character are sacrificed. On the plus side, Molina reads well indeed. His impersonations have great depth. He can leap into their full emotional intensity from a dead stop, thus elevating the audio considerably above the level of "Cliffs Notes." Y.R. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: SEPT 97]