After her programme of Baroque arias in ‘Drama Queens’ (Virgin, 1/13), Joyce DiDonato moves on a century to treat us to a fine selection of excerpts from 10 operas, seven of which were composed for Naples. It’s good that the lesser-known contemporaries of Rossini get a look-in. Unfortunately the opening number, from Pacini’s Stella di Napoli, is the kind of piece that gets ottocento opera a bad name. ‘Receive the dying sigh my breast exhales’ sings Stella, chirruping away to a cheerful polonaise. A proper seriousness is established with Nelly’s Romanza from Bellini’s first opera, Adelson e Salvini: three strophic stanzas, beautifully embellished, with a telling switch to the major at the final cadence.

There’s some lovely instrumental playing: harp and clarinet in the Carafa, and the glass harmonica part in Elisabetta al castello di Kenilworth played on a gently tinkling glockenspiel. The harp is heard in the latter, too, and in Mary Stuart’s preghiera. Here DiDonato reappears in the role in which she triumphed at the Met (Erato DVD, 8/14). As there (and at Covent Garden last July), so here: warm tone, perfect control, a deeply sympathetic portrayal. The finale of Zelmira provides DiDonato with the opportunity of showing off her brilliantly executed coloratura, while her mezza voce at the start of Romeo’s farewell to the supposedly dead Juliet in Bellini’s opera is sustained to perfection. By far the longest number, at 14 minutes, is the closing scene of Pacini’s Saffo. As the poetess prepares to throw herself off the cliff into the sea, DiDonato invests the music with a tragic grandeur. Full texts and translations but the dramatic situations are left largely unexplained.