The title of Angela Gheorghiu’s first studio album for six years may be Eternamente – “eternally” – but the truth is that most things don’t last forever, voices especially. At 52, Gheorghiu has lost the soft, velvet-and-steel brilliance of her early years, but not yet found quite what to do with what remains. Her solution – to lower the tessitura and spread the weight more thickly – isn’t a happy one, as this erratic collection demonstrates. 

The disc opens with three of the weakest tracks. Santuzza feels a stretch, even for a soprano with a natural darkness to her tone, and both the Easter Hymn and Voi lo sapete, o mamma have a querulous, quavering intensity that seems like an attempt to compensate for a lack of...