So, the series has come of age. Twenty-one volumes, which means (taking the present programme of 12 as average) about 250 items. Mind, they can’t all be “great” and, for that matter, not all of them are arias. Still, they have done well, presenting a good company of singers, each able to represent a particular type of voice and so to cover a wide operatic repertoire, arranged usefully and (as far as I know) uniquely on records by this system of vocal categories.

The new volume illustrates the lyric soprano often in relatively dramatic moments, mostly from 19th-century operas with some incursions into the 20th. The two “modern” operas, Malcolm Williamson’s The Violins of Saint-Jacques and Jake Heggie’s The End of the Affair, are lyrical in style and welcome both in themselves and for their unexpectedness. We note that arias which might have been paired – the two from Adriana Lecouvreur, Arabella and The Queen of Spades – are programmed separately, which might annoy the tidy-minded but doesn’t greatly upset me.

Cheryl Barker is always clean in her placing of notes and clear in her articulation of the English words. She is ready with a trill, has an ample supply of high notes and (in the Mefistofele aria, for example) reinforces the lower register effectively; sometimes (as in the opening of the Arabella-Mandryka duet) she sings quite beautifully. Her associates have some additional qualities. Gillian Keith’s light soprano appears pure in tone and evenly produced, and William Dazeley (surely one of our best baritones) has an attractive timbre, heard pleasingly throughout. David Parry’s speeds tend to be a little too slow for my liking but the orchestral playing is refined and responsive.