Renée Fleming has often said what a favourite role of hers Rusalka is, and the superb CD set on Decca with Sir Charles Mackerras conducting (11/98 – Gramophone’s Record of the Year) bears that out. Here in a live recording, made in 2002 for French television, of Robert Carsen’s Paris Opera production we have further confirmation, helped by a supporting cast that could hardly be starrier, with James Conlon a warmly Dvoákian conductor.

Fleming is in glorious voice, with the recording balance tending to favour singers rather than the orchestra. Yet there are striking differences in her reading here compared to her studio recordings, both in the complete opera and the version of the heroine’s key aria, ‘The Invocation to the Moon’, included on her recital disc with Sir Georg Solti (Decca, 10/97).

On stage her expression is far freer. With this freedom comes greater vocal warmth but less vocal discipline, with the sort of sliding between notes and under-the-note attack that becomes obtrusive in a recording. When much is so moving, and Fleming’s acting matches her unfailingly heartfelt singing, it is a minor problem, but it makes me prefer the audio version, not just of the ‘Invocation’ but of her other big numbers, where the expressive underlining may not be so distracting but is evident nonetheless.

Sergei Larin as the Prince is similarly positive, with his clear Slavonic tenor only occasionally roughening under strain, though in Carsen’s modern-dress production, with costumes by Michael Levine, he cuts an even less romantic figure than he might; he’s not helped by his outfits of winter overcoat and trilby, and baggy lounge suit. Larissa Dyadkova makes a characterful figure of the witch, Jezibaba, even when in Act 3 she appears in what initially looks like a padded pulpit, but then in a surreal way turns out to be a vertically upended bed.

Franz Hawlata, a fine bass who deserves to appear more on disc, sings with richness and power as the Water Spirit, an imposing figure even in a lounge suit and wire-framed spectacles. Power and projection also mark the singing of Eva Urbanová as the Prince’s seducer, the Foreign Princess, and it is good to have the veteran Michel Sénéchal taking the character role of the Forester, though he and the excellent Karine Deshayes as the Kitchen Boy are rather hindered by their morning dress.

When it comes to ‘concept’ productions of this opera, we in Britain have been spoilt by the classic 1980s staging at English National Opera with its Alice in Wonderland associations. This Paris production with its unflattering modern costumes and prosaic sets – sometimes a bare box, more often a gigantic hotel bedroom – has little magic, despite some clever lighting devised by Carsen himself. The format is relatively extravagant on two DVDs, with a collection of trailers for other discs from TDK as the only substantial extra.