As Anna Netrebko cycles out of bel canto and into more lirico-spinto Verdi roles, Giovanna d’Arco stands at the halfway point, in a recording of this under-exposed opera that is cast in starry Salzburg Festival style. All are caught live at the Felsenreitschule with the Munich Radio Orchestra under Paolo Carignani in performances that are passionate and polished, in a handsome package with full libretto. It’s an excellent introduction to the opera but not the best out there. Early Verdi needs keen dramatic consideration if the operas aren’t to show their antecedents so blatantly. Example: Joan’s climactic scene needs maximum conviction to prevent its accompanying clarinet seeming like more than just a rip-off of Lucia di Lammermoor’s mad-scene flute solo.

The basic nature of the concert-performance setting fails to give the opera that extra lift, partly because the characterisations aren’t seasoned, from its stars to the Philharmonia Chor Wien. The stage perspective is stationary, so that the choral writing for angels and demons arises from the same recording perspective as the village mobs. And though Netrebko and Domingo have moments of great dramatic chemistry, other passages have primary-colour dramatic responses, making some of the more formulaic moments seem, well, formulaic.

Meli has Domingo competition on two fronts: in his earlier life as a tenor, Domingo recorded his role (an EMI recording now also licensed as part of Decca’s Verdi ‘Complete Works’ box), and now, as a baritone, is his co-star, still sounding like a tenor with better instincts for projecting words and shaping phrases (even if the role doesn’t lie in the strongest regions of his voice). In contrast, Meli’s full-throated singing reminds you that sheer volume never passes for vocal charisma. Even the conductor Paolo Carignani suffers in comparison to the young James Levine on EMI.

Netrebko’s upper range delivers operatic thrills (particularly once she’s warmed up), though her more dramatically vivid treatment of Joan’s more introspective moments make you eager for her to explore better-known Verdi. But on EMI, Montserrat Caballé’s coloratura and the authority projected by her middle voice feel far more natural and effortless. That doesn’t mean that there should be a moratorium on Giovanna d’Arco recordings until God creates Caballé’s equal. And for an opera as little known as this one, the circumstances of this new recording are perhaps the best one could hope for.