Our March Recording of the Month is Invocation, a brilliantly curated album of operatic arias by French-Danish soprano Elsa Dreisig (Warner Classics/Erato 2685409371).

The recital, which ranges from Bellini and Verdi to Wagner and Grieg, is built around ideas of prayer, supplication and reflection. “It might sound heavy-going, but the overall effect is anything but,” writes Justine Nguyen in a five-star rave. “Rather, one walks away feeling lighter, consoled by these moments of communion, and impressed by the range and interpretive skill of a singer still early in her career.”

As it turns out, Dreisig has only performed one of these roles onstage (Lauretta in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi), making the depth of feeling and nuance that she brings to the 15 arias and two songs gathered here even more remarkable. Take her Casta Diva. While by no means a classic Norma type, Nguyen points out, she brings “an appropriate lunar beauty to this plea to the moon” in “a deeply felt interpretation”.

Tosca’s Vissi d’arte, meanwhile, is imbued with a “stylistic intelligence and assured sense of dramatic pacing,” while an aria from Verdi’s La forza del...