Secretly, let's face it-or is this one of those heresies with which the guilty soul has to live companionless?-the moments in performances of Russian opera when the heart leaps up and gives a naive little cry of ''Oh, I am enjoying this!'' tend to occur during the choruses. For one thing, they are often the most Russian part of it, having a basis of folk-song and bringing out of the voices something of the national character. More elemental and elementary, perhaps, is their colourfulness. All the choruses on this record are rich in colouring. Some (Mlada and the finale of A Life for the Tsar, for instance) are choruses of rejoicing; others (the psalterists in Snow Maiden, the Christmas Eve ''Koliadka'' carol) are religious; and it is good to have, for stiffening, the communal panic of the Invisible city of Kitezh and the Revolutionary scene in Boris Godunov. An enjoyable record, with the ''Polovtsian Dances'' bringing it to a splendid conclusion.

-- Gramophone [5/1994]