We’ve got used to the fact that Michael Spyres albums take us on unexpected journeys, often with unexpected diversions on the way. Here, though, it’s the destination that’s likely to be the talking point. The tenor has already discussed in these pages (3/23) his move to heavier repertoire, and here – a year later, and a few months before he makes his Bayreuth debut as Siegmund – is the album he mentioned at the end of that interview, culminating in three Wagner arias.

Spyres’s aim is to demonstrate where those operas come from, to trace their provenance through a multifarious operatic history that Wagner himself was keen to underplay or downright deny. The result is a fascinating programme taking in well-known works by Beethoven, Bellini and Weber, as well other arias of different degrees of rarity – by composers and from works that have languished in the Wagnerian shadows.

It provides a fascinating prospectus of early 19th-century opera, in which the dramatic possibilities of the genre were expanded and, not unrelatedly, the tenor was positioned increasingly as hero. And there’s plenty of vocal heroics from Spyres, as one would expect. He’s terrific in Leicester’s aria from Elisabetta, regina d’Inghliterra, for example (and how close to Beethoven its opening feels!), and there’s swagger to his Pollione and a real drama to the aria from La muette de Portici.

The other French and Italian arias are superbly done, too, the support from Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques brilliantly alive and engaged throughout. They also do a terrific job of setting the scene in the Beethoven and Weber arias. There, however, the tenor feels a little less at home.

First of all, his German isn’t entirely idiomatic – there’s an unfortunate slip in the Freischütz extract where he sings of bringing home rich brides (‘Bräute’) instead of booty (‘Beute’). But both arias are dispatched with the expected security and style, and the slight, tremulous vibrato in Max’s aria (as well as in the Marschner extract) is appealing. There’s a rare singerly sensitivity, too. The lack of steel in the timbre is notable, but maybe that’s precisely the point he’s making: that we’re wrong to cast these roles looking back, as it were, from Wagner.

And when we get to the Wagner itself, there’s much to admire. The real rarity, the aria from Die Feen, is performed with a compelling sense of drama. Rienzi’s Prayer is impassioned and moving – and benefits greatly from Spyres’s bel canto credentials. The tenor already offered a taste of Lohengrin (albeit in French) on his ‘Baritenor’ album (A/21), and his ‘Mein lieber Schwan’ here is refreshingly clean and clear rather than heroic.

So, Spyres as Wagner singer? Let’s say that I’m intrigued to hear what comes next. For now, this is another fine, fascinating album from an unusually interesting and intelligent artist, handsomely recorded.