But reviewers agree that the recording succeeds--in spite of Domingo, and in spite of James Levine's overblown conducting (Alan Blyth, the Daily Telegraph )--mainly because of the cast, which includes soprano Cecilia Bartoli and Thomas Hampson.
Bartoli and Hampson save the recording.
So do the region's wayang kulit shadow plays inspired by the dramas of the ancient Indian epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata.