Though in the past five or six years Anna Netrebko has become one of the most admired of young lyric sopranos the world over, she will always for me (I suspect) be first and foremost the enchanting Lyudmila of the 1995 Maryinsky/San Francisco production of Glinka’s opera, happily preserved on DVD (Philips 9/03) and irradiated by this pure, clear voice, winning in style and manner, masterful beyond her years (she was only 23) in technique. So this first solo recital disc comes not before time and is most welcome – a little saddening, however, to read in the biographical introductory notes that she ‘does not consider herself a particularly persuasive champion of Russian opera’ and prefers to devote herself (as here) to French and Italian.

Certainly she has made a good selection. Everything suits the voice, including Donna Anna’s ‘Non mi dir’ (though I can’t quite ‘hear’ her in the Vengeance aria). In Bellini and Donizetti she shows the primary strength of drawing a firm, even melodic line, and when she rises above the stave it is without that tendency to hardening and shrillness which has so often beset Italian sopranos. In the French repertory the free, glistening high notes are a great asset to her Manon (particularly the chosen excerpt), and the Benvenuto Cellini aria is a joy, not only in her performance but simply to find there.

Occasionally some feature of pronunciation reminds us that she is not a native speaker of these languages, and there are times when greater clarity would not come amiss. Yet the limitation, I would say, lies more in that elusive quality we call, for short, the personal touch. The recitative in Idomeneo promises well, the phrases expressively handled, the emotional development vividly enacted; but later, listening for something specific I couldn’t quite catch the moment, the inflection, the personal way of shading which can make a singer’s art irreplaceable in memory’s store. Time for that, no doubt. Meanwhile here is one of the best of the younger generation, faithfully recorded and notably well accompanied by the VPO under Noseda.