Thinking of Tony Pappano, I would like to highlight these 3 marvelous recordings. In each he has a powerful, larger-than-life soloist, and yet it is HE who sets the mood and builds the architecture of the music. Being the great opera conductor that he is, he knows how to give his soloist, space, ample room for he or she to do their thing, but it is unquestionably the conductor who leads the way, and because these are joyous, lively, almost unanimous performances, I am quite sure that the 3 divos trusted their conductor.
These are 3 crystal clear examples of the craft of a real conductor, one that knows the scores, knows what he wants, and rather than "impose" a point of view, quite simply makes everything so right, so inevitable, that the soloist just follows without second thoughts.
This is something that Kubelik could do, and more recently Abbado.
Pappano´s recent Rachmaninov 2 and Mahler 6, even with an orchestra not really ideal for that music, are very, very good recordings.