All three principals are new to their roles in this recording – something either exhilarating or anxiety inducing depending on the listener. The actual result doesn’t inspire any extreme emotion, which is the problem. Lawrence Foster leads the Gulbenkian Orchestra in a clean reading, yet they have little feeling for the score’s sudden outbursts, the brilliant, gnarly strings, the moments of melting lyricism. Tempi are on the slow side, not helping the singers (and they need it) achieve a sense of forward propulsion.

Most disappointing is Nikolai Schukoff, whose tenor is brighter and lighter than most Otelli. This is not a role that he could credibly sing in a big house at the moment, and it sadly falls short here. But leaving aside the vocal...