Verdi: Simon Boccanegra (1990)

More Verdi, this time led by Herbert von Karajan's great rival, Georg Solti, who stepped in and conducted the Salzburg Ballo after Karajan's death. This dark, brooding tragedy about a 14th-century doge of Genoa is periodically electrified by Solti's familiar cattle-prod approach, but even this opera doesn't have to be all gloom and doom. Next to ''Don Carlos,'' ''Simon Boccanegra'' is probably Verdi's finest tune, even if only 42 people in the whole world will admit it.