Opera galas are strange beasts, but this one from Baden Baden in 2016 (the booklet doesn’t give us the exact date) has much to recommend it. The main attractions are some meaty extracts that offer glimpses of singers in roles otherwise unavailable: 10 minutes each of Anja Harteros’s Tosca (a juicy confrontation with Bryn Terfel’s Scarpia leading to a supremely classy and moving ‘Vissi d’arte’), for example, plus a further taster of Jonas Kaufmann’s Otello, in ‘Già nella notte densa’, to complement his recordings of the arias on his ‘Verdi Album’ (Sony, A/13).

In fact, it’s the duets that fare best over all, and the Otello extract is probably worth the price of admission – somewhat steep on the night, one imagines – alone: it is sung with rare sensitivity and a chaste tenderness that create a powerful erotic charge. Kaufmann’s duets with Ekaterina Gubanova, lengthy extracts each from Cavalleria rusticana and Adriana Lecouvreur, are excellent too.

Solo numbers are undoubtedly more difficult to pull off out of context. Kaufmann’s ‘E lucevan’ shows him at his most mannered, for example, and Terfel’s pantomime villain act as Boito’s and Gounod’s devils wears thin. His lack of legato and true bass colour is a problem, too, especially in Philip’s aria from Don Carlo, where he seems completely at sea interpretatively. His Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof, though, underlines what a uniquely charismatic performer he remains.

Gubanova’s solo numbers are impressive, especially her ‘O don fatale’, but it is repeatedly Harteros who steals the show: her Tannhäuser Elisabeth takes the tricky opening spot well, and her Verdi arias are grandly, imposingly affecting. She manages plenty of charm, too, in ‘Son pochi fiori’.

The whole event is glitzy, with a set that is more reminiscent of the Oscars than any Toscas. It all gets increasingly chummy as we get closer to the final Lehár singalong. The playing of the Badische Staatskapelle is decent – with excellent contributions from a busy principal cellist – and Marco Armiliato keeps everything ticking along well.

Sony’s booklet offers only track listings and photographs, and the sound is a little over-reverberant, but there’s enough quality here to make this well worth seeking out.