Though Verdi’s creative lifetime is one of the great artistic arcs in opera, his unmistakable voice was there from the beginning, even in seldom-heard early works where he ran down some fascinating blind alleys, such as putting a miniature violin concerto into I Lombardi or, in this collection’s Act 2 excerpts from Aroldo, building an aria around a complex ostinato played by a delicate string consort.

Though Riccardo Muti seeks out every possible detail in his early Verdi performances, the less-affected performers here simply tap the lyrical power of the vocal writing. With a legato line unblemished by aspirating, the seasoned Bellini specialist Lucia Aliberti is exactly the right soprano to do so in a well-chosen collection of arias that welcomes the filigree purity of her voice but doesn’t lead the ear to expect the kind of truck-driver chest voice that verismo singers bring to Verdi.

With that comes such a strong sense of expressive integration that one can think Aliberti isn’t taking some of the cadenzas – not true – because she delivers expressive elements and vocal fireworks as all of a piece. Often, young Verdi seemed to expect multiple vocal types within the same aria. Aliberti suggests he knew exactly what he was doing, seconded by Oleg Caetani’s alert but non-interventionist conducting.

Comparisons with Joan Sutherland’s early Verdi recordings aren’t fair – to Sutherland, who seemed pushed to her limits. Aliberti occasionally shows strain on high notes or when she attempts more chest voice than she can command. Nevertheless, she adapts well to Lady Macbeth’s ‘Si colmi il calice’ – a lighter moment in a chesty role. When Maria Callas was asked to switch from light to heavy roles on short order, she claimed her voice wasn’t an elevator that goes up and down. But I think that Aliberti’s might be.