Marie-Nicole Lemieux, who was so impressive in Vivaldi’s Orlando furioso (6/12), here tackles an unhackneyed array of arias from the 18th century. The orchestra and conductor, like her, are Canadian. You might think that a band called Les Violons du Roy would feature period instruments: it doesn’t, but the playing is lean and muscular, with plenty of light and air. Five of the nine Italian arias were written for a castrato. The central number, and at nearly 12 minutes the longest, is the excerpt from Graun’s Montezuma (1755). The Aztec king faces death with courage, a weeping figure on the violins giving voice to his feelings. Sesto, the lovelorn traitor in La clemenza di Tito, is in a similar situation: Mozart opts for ravishing beauty, as Gluck had done in Orfeo’s ‘Che farò’. Lemieux brings warm tone and ravishing phrasing to all three arias. She is also splendidly defiant in Farnace’s aria from Mitridate and heartfelt in the concert aria ‘Io ti lascio’.

From castrato via the adolescent Cherubino to real women. The Haydn arias are nicely contrasted, with more sighing in Costanza’s lament from L’isola disabitata and coloratura in the excerpt from Il ritorno di Tobia. The only other aria from an oratorio is from Mozart’s La Betulia liberata. Lemieux is mesmerising with her soft tone in the slow central section, where Judith sings of her being inspired by God.

Lemieux’s spine-tingling account of Clytemnestra’s air in Iphigénie en Aulide is complemented by Bernard Labadie’s attention to detail, notably in the way his cellos and basses dig into their notes in the preceding recitative. Good sound, except for a backward harpsichord.