The cover photo is baffling, given that “verismo” might be translated as “realism”: gold-headdressed bird goddesses don’t feature much in the sensationalised “real life” of that strand of turn-of-the-20th-century Italian opera. Yet Anna Netrebko has surely earned some sartorial indulgence. Extracts from 10 operas show her voice reaching an exciting maturity, its increased weight matched by even more gleam, fizz and expressive projection. She has yet to sing most of these roles on stage, but inhabits them convincingly, though consonants are rarely a priority: her Madam Butterfly sounds aptly aged by sorrow, her Turandot impassioned and imperious, her Adriana Lecouvreur radiantly self-assured. For the final act of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut she is joined by her husband, Yusif Eyvazov, a good tenor who has married well. Antonio Pappano is, as ever, the ideal supportive conductor, and the orchestra plays as if it loves Netrebko’s every note.
