“At best, encore-time turns a recital into a party,” comments the late John Steane in his evocative booklet-note. As in the second half of their Wigmore Hall recital in January, Christine Brewer and Roger Vignoles here throw an extended party with a string of encores beloved of four revered divas: the Americans Eileen Farrell, Helen Traubel and Eleanor Steber, and – surprisingly to those who cannot envisage her shorn of Wagnerian spear and helmet – the Norwegian Kirsten Flagstad. These mostly American songs are effortlessly melodious, awash with nostalgic sentiment, unafraid of schmaltz, and artfully fashioned towards a climax flaunting a soprano’s “money notes”. Some numbers suggest Puccini in the parlour, others come straight out of Broadway; there’s folksy charm here, a tangy whiff of the blues there.

Brewer hosts her party with flair, unselfconscious enjoyment and unerring style. Never do we sense the opera singer trying to appropriate an alien domain. No other Wagner-Strauss soprano today could catch the bluesy languor of the Arlen song so naturally, the rhythms subtly swung, speech and song in perfect balance. In another gem, Bernstein’s “Some other time”, what Steane terms the “sighed, slightly Noël Cowardish ‘Oh well’s” are deliciously inflected. Elsewhere Brewer excels in simple, intimate tenderness but can also command soaring refulgence of tone. Frank Bridge’s “Love went a-riding” receives a torrential, no-holds-barred performance such as I have never heard equalled. At the other end of the spectrum, she judges perfectly the recital’s comic send-off: Celius Dougherty’s “Review”, which satirises both critic (in pompous prose) and singer, one Miss Sadabelle Smith. Gleefully abetted by Vignoles, Brewer enters into the fun – aping Miss Smith’s nervousness, her thin, nasal tone, and so on – without ever over-egging the pudding. It ends in a muffled near-monotone: “Max Schmidt was the sympathetic accompanist”. Such cursory comment is the lot of pianists. Roger Vignoles is indeed unfailingly sympathetic, but so much more: an animator and colourist whose rhythmic energy and legerdemain contribute crucially to the success of the whole delightful, offbeat recital.