Marita Sølberg’s name is only familiar to me through editing reviews from Norwegian National Opera, where the soprano has built her career, a Zerlina for Glyndebourne apart. This recital disc, recorded with her home band under its music director John Fiore, should act as a neat calling card, showcasing a variety of roles in five languages.

Opening with the stereotypical ‘diva’ aria, ‘Ebben? Ne andrò lontana’ from La Wally, it’s immediately apparent that Sølberg possesses a creamy lyric soprano that should be most at home in Italian repertoire. And so it proves. She presents an appealing Liù with a lovely ‘Signore, ascolta’ in which the final high B flat blossoms and dies well, followed by a really lovely ‘Tu che di gel sei cinta’ as the slave girl commits suicide rather than reveal Calaf’s name to the ice princess Turandot. Her Mimì has plenty of rosy sunshine, although her soprano can harden a little under pressure. She offers a gently tremulous Desdemona, but it’s odd to only have the Ave Maria but no preceding Willow Song.

Where Sølberg falters is in her characterisations. All roles sound roughly the same, her Countess from Le nozze di Figaro sounding bored and bland, as is her Bellini Giulietta. More vocal differentiation is required to bring these women alive.

Away from Italian repertoire, she sounds a touch pushed in the aria from Rachmaninov’s Francesca da Rimini but Dvořák’s Rusalka is a better fit. An aria from Strauss’s Die Liebe der Danae – along with an orchestral interlude – makes for inventive programming. Sølberg sounds less suited to French opera, however. She swallows consonants as Gounod’s Juliette and requires more of a silvery tone for Leïla from The Pearl Fishers, reaching for high notes a little tentatively in ‘Comme autrefois’.

A black mark to Simax for no texts or translations, merely a few booklet-notes to set the arias in context. A mixed bag, then, but a soprano definitely worth hearing.