This sounds like an enjoyable concert to have attended. Two of today’s brightest soprano stars – both friends and rivals (in the sense that they sing the same type of repertoire) – in a joint 2023 programme of arias and duets at the Philharmonie de Paris. Nadine Sierra and Pretty Yende require little introduction, having enjoyed success on the stages of the world’s major opera houses, and their fans will doubtless snap up this disc.

Both sopranos are near the top of their game here. Sierra is quite the minx in Norina’s aria from Don Pasquale, her Violetta shines, with nice ornamentation in ‘Ah fors’è lui’ and a glittering ‘Sempre libera’ (in which Yende sings her offstage Alfredo), and ‘Je veux vivre’ from Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette is full of heady excitement (and an outrageously held final note). Yende allows herself a touch of humour in Marie’s ‘Chacun le sait, chacun le dit’ from La fille du régiment, but her Olympia (Hoffmann) could be wilder. Giacomo Sagripanti conducts Les Frivolités Parisiennes with a fine sense of panache.

If there’s a sense of disappointment, it’s that – for Sierra’s fans in particular – they’ve recorded lots of this rep before. Sierra’s Violetta and Juliette featured extensively on her latest solo DG disc, ‘Made for Opera’ (4/22), which focused on La traviata, Roméo et Juliette and the work in which she recently wowed London audiences, Lucia di Lammermoor. She also sang ‘A Julia de Burgos’ from Bernstein’s Songfest on her debut album (11/18). Yende sang Amina’s lengthy aria and cabaletta from Bellini’s La Sonnambula on her Sony album ‘Dreams’ (2/18). Inevitably, the studio recordings are more polished than the concert versions. If there’s an interesting duplication, it’s the Flower Duet from Lakmé, where Yende now switches roles to Mallika.

It’s the duets that generally add the most interest, especially as they haven’t sung any of the three operas excerpted. In the duet from Bellini’s Norma, Sierra takes the role of the high priestess of the druids, while Yende sings Adalgisa. Rossini may not be natural territory for either soprano but the duet from Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra goes swimmingly, Sierra as the titular queen, Yende as Matilde, secret wife of the Earl of Leicester. Their voices blend well, Yende’s slightly darker and thus suited to the lower-sitting roles in the pairings.

There are a couple of lighter numbers. Yende stamps her foot as the prima donna in Victor Herbert’s The Enchantress, then gatecrashes Sierra’s ‘I feel pretty’ with ‘I am pretty!’ before duetting in ‘La vie en rose’. There, the physical disc closes, but the digital release contains a medley of songs from the movies – not entirely idiomatic but fun to hear. It would be even more fun to watch, so keen fans might want to head to DG’s Stage+ streaming service.