Despite moves into heavier roles in recent years (Eboli, Dalila and Carmen), the Bulgarian mezzo-soprano Vesselina Kasarova is still better known as a bel canto and Handel specialist. Therefore a disc of Russian arias is a bit of a surprise move and one that has its fair few hits and misses. There is plenty of formidable heft in her lower register, which makes easy work of Tchaikovsky’s Joan of Arc. However, Kasarova’s tone verges towards the treacly, which makes her sound rather too matronly for such ingénue roles as Olga (Eugene Onegin) and Polina (The Queen of Spades), both of which she sang early in her career.

There is a rather ‘old school’ Slavic wobble for the listener to surmount, which makes her Konchakovna (Prince Igor) unseductive. Kasarova tries to lighten her voice as Marina (Boris Godunov), but it’s too breathy, with huge leaps between head and chest registers. She concludes Marina’s aria with a pantomime-witch cackle, which isn’t quite the effect I imagine Mussorgsky had in mind.

Far better are her imperious Marfa (Khovanshchina), darkly coloured, and her Queen of Spades Countess, where her plummy tone helps to present a formidable character before she reins it in for the Countess’s Grétry aria. Lyubasha’s unaccompanied song from Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride is given a haunting rendition, and Laura’s light-hearted aria from Dargomïzhsky’s The Stone Guest is fun, its accompaniment drawn from Glinka’s Jota aragonesa.

The Philharmonie Baden-Baden under Pavel Baleff play attentively. The Prelude from The Queen of Spades as a ‘filler’ makes sense, placed before the two vocal numbers from the same opera, but the Dance of the Tumblers is a perplexing conclusion to this uneven disc.