At first, this looks like a random collection of overtures, preludes and intermezzos gathered by Riccardo Chailly, mixing the familiar with the unfamiliar. However, they are all from operas which premiered in Milan – although not quite all at La Scala, as the Leoncavallo operas premiered down the road at the Teatro Dal Verme. Chailly ‘sells’ this music like nobody else today. I grew up with Herbert von Karajan’s collection of intermezzo lollipops, swooning at the syrupy Berlin Philharmonic strings in Manon Lescaut and Notre Dame. Only the Pagliacci intermezzo from that collection appears on this disc, but Chailly’s approach is leaner, with more of an eye for dramatic possibilities.

Chailly’s scrupulous care over dynamics leaps out in the very first phrases of Verdi’s overture to Un giorno di regno – here going under the title of Il finto Stanislao which, according to the conductor, was how it premiered at La Scala in 1840. It fairly zings along.

The playing of the Filarmonica della Scala is electric, although the acoustic is a little tubby. Strings are light and nimble in Rossini and Donizetti, caressing the gentle Act 3 introduction to Catalani’s La Wally with great tenderness. Bellini’s Overture to Norma bristles with drama, while Rossini’s for La pietra del paragone bubbles along infectiously. It’s a shame that The Thieving Magpie (premiered at La Scala 200 years ago) doesn’t get a look in, although Chailly has recorded it before. ‘The Song of the Volga Boatmen’ puts in an appearance in a real rarity, Giordano’s Siberia.

The Scala soloists get a chance to shine, especially leader Francesco De Angelis in the saccharine violin concertante solo that opens Act 3 of I Lombardi, stylishly fiddled. Ponchielli’s ‘Dance of the Hours’ will have toes tapping, even if it will always conjure memories of hippos in tutus!

The lengthy intermezzo from Madama Butterfly demonstrates that Chailly – along with Antonio Pappano – is the leading Puccini conductor of today, and the brassy bombast of the opening to Boito’s Mefistofele that concludes this splendid disc had me wishing the entire Prologue – nay, the entire opera – followed.