By and large this set of Rigoletto must now become the recommended version. [This recording was met with] excited anticipation at finding Giulini once again in the studio recording his beloved Verdi … Giulini, like the composer, was himself out to "make something of a great subject", and he – with the dedication of about as strong a cast as it would be possible to assemble today, the Vienna Philharmonic and the DG engineers – has achieved not just another performance of an oft-recorded work but something with that kind of individual distinction so rarely encountered.