New recordings of Capriccio appear seldom but this one really isn’t meant to compete. It appears to be an afterthought, a German radio production (with patch sessions) with more pluses than minuses. So why not release it? And do so again after its first appearance 11 years ago? The primary attractions – Felicity Lott and Georges Prêtre – have become more venerable. Elsewhere, the singers weren’t so carefully chosen and aren’t always in good voice, in a set that’s an adjunct for those who adore the piece.

And there’s so much to adore. In his last finished stage work, Strauss’s operatic debate about the importance of words, music and commerce allowed the composer to revisit his own past glories, including the conversational Ariadne auf Naxos prologue, operas he would like to have written, such as Wagner’s Act 2 ensembles in Die Meistersinger, and press forward into fresh territory with Capriccio’s string sextet prelude and final scene.

The Countess is an ideal role for Lott’s word-based singing and superb legato, not to mention her Gallic levity: she may not always be tossing off witticisms but she sings as if she is. While Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (for Sawallisch in 1959) maintains an aristocratic veneer in the final scene, Lott gives a sense of letting down her public face once the guests are gone, urging the opera into a less cerebral, more emotionally satisfying resolution.

In the key role of impresario La Roche, who has perhaps the longest monologue in any Strauss opera, Günter von Kannen has the vocal stamina but not the timbre or authority. Stephan Genz is an alluring Olivier while Gregory Kunde is vocally out of sorts in one scene and excellent in others. Thomas Allen is under-used.

The Prêtre factor doesn’t loom as large as it might since a 1964 Prêtre-led Capriccio was issued on Orfeo in 2008 – still not capturing the freer tempi of his more mature period. But neither does this 1999 set, if only because the orchestra is recorded so far in the background with curiously slow tempi. Like I said, an afterthought.