I hate opera reviews, too.

In 1978, London/Decca released a 3-LP set of that most famous of twofer opera combos: Cavalleria Rusticana & Il Pagliacci. These two one-acters often come joined at the hip as a pair - like Batman & Robin, Lennon & McCartney, as well as Apples & Oranges. At the time of the LP release, Luciano Pavarotti was just at the start of superstardom with the "Three Tenors" still a dozen years in the offing.

The two principal music magazines at the time were High Fidelity and Stereo Review and, as expected, both reviewed this release. The two reviewers were Conrad L Osborne and George Jellinek respectively, both with long pedigrees as writers about opera. Two more disparate opinions would be hard to imagine.

In his review - more a manifesto than a review - Mr. Osborne's opus "Diary of a CavPag Madman" occupied nine full pages, over 10% of the editorial pages of that June 1979 issue. He conveniently provides a thumbnail review of Il Pagliacci as it would read if honesty were the only consideration: "This really stinks. Ees so bad, ees terrible."

Mr. Jellinek's review ran a more conventional column-and-a-half in the May 1979 issue of Stereo Review under a "Recording of Special Merit" banner.

Osborne was particularly critical of Pagliacci whereas Jellinek found it "outstanding" while the Cavalleria suffers from conductor Gianandrea Gavazzeni's rather prosaic direction. Osborne finds the Cavalleria is passably sung and quite interestingly conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni, therefore conceivably desirable to those who place high value on conductorial nuance, whereas the Pagliacci is a no-account bore. End of facts."

Not only fat ladies sing opera.

Pietro Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana
Ruggiero Leoncavallo: Il Pagliacci

London Records– OSAD-13125(3) with Luciano Pavarotti, Mirella Freni, Julia Varady, Ingvar Wixell, Piero Cappuccilli, London Voices, National Philharmonic Orchestra, Giuseppe Patané, Gianandrea Gavazzeni.

Notes:
Archives of many music and broadcast periodicals can be found at World Radio History. These include High Fidelity, Stereophile, and Stereo Review.
Modern performance tradition seems not to inevitably pair Cavalleria Rusticana with Il Pagliacci. In November-December 2022, the Jyske Opera staged Pagliacci with the little known La Vendettace by Asger Hamerik. With yet another twist, these performances opened with the prologue from Pagliacci followed by La Vendettace and then, only after the intermission, the opera portion of Pagliacci.