This is an attractive record and its appeal may well be felt before a note of it is heard. Many who take a particular interest in singing find themselves drawn towards the French repertoire partly on its own account and partly because they feel that much of it has been neglected and would still repay exploration. They will see in this programme an aria from Halévy’s Charles VI, which has as good a claim as any to the epithet “legendary”, hardly a phrase of it being familiar to today’s public and yet one particular phrase (“Guerre aux tyrants”) coming so near to constituting a casus belli between France and England that the French thought it would be prudent to censor their own patriotism. Then there is the intriguing André Wormser, unknown to Grove and, for all I know, to Google itself. And this young singer – perhaps still new to some – so provocatively classified as “contralto” also has the kind of name and background that attract the attention of traditional record collectors.

Well, I would suggest that listeners who feel themselves so attracted should start not with the opening number, Hérodiade’s big solo which gives the programme its title, but with the gentler Mignon and Charlotte. The vociferous declamation in which we hear her first encourages the naturally vibrant voice to quiver alarmingly. This is not a “spread” vibrato but it needs care: as the French say to children before crossing the road: “Attention!”