A new recording from Roberta Invernizzi always gives pleasure, but on the rare occasion when the Italian soprano is placed in the spotlight, as with this new collection of opera arias, it promises something very special indeed.

Invernizzi is known for her style and drama in the music of the Baroque (as on recent discs of Handel and Campra). This new journey, on Glossa, showcases Vivaldi’s own fertile dramatic capacity to capture moods and a whole range of emotional highs and lows embracing anger, despair, anxiety, amorous frustration and touching intensity. Invernizzi triumphs, crowned by her electrifying performance of 'Dopo un’orrida procella' from 'Griselda'.

The programme offers a set of contrasts in known arias from Vivaldi’s operatic music and those which deserve to be better-known. Invernizzi’s interpretation is aided and abetted by La Risonanza’s fine group of instrumentalists and, of course, sympathetic direction from Fabio Bonizzoni, speaking volumes for their long musical association.