La povera ragazza, è pazza, amici miei. ‘The poor girl, my friends, has lost her mind’, confides Don Giovanni to Donna Anna and Don Ottavio, trying to brush Donna Elvira’s accusations under the carpet. Madness, confusion, treachery and betrayal are the lot of many characters in Mozart’s trio of operas created with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte. His music is also deceptively difficult to perform, so the title of Golda Schultz’s new album seems especially apt.

The album sees Schultz adopting multiple roles in arias and ensembles from the three Mozart/da Ponte operas: Donnas Elvira and Anna from Don Giovanni, Susanna and the Countess from Le nozze di Figaro (subtitled in Beaumarchais’s play as La folle journée), and Fiordiligi from Così fan tutte. We zip between the three operas, Schultz swapping identities, even in successive scenes, from Elvira in that Giovanni quartet to Anna, who suddenly realises that the Don is her father’s murderer.

‘Mozart and da Ponte’, Schultz writes in an excellent booklet note, ‘have achieved something so few other composers have dared to do – they allow their women to win.’ She is a classy Mozartian and imbues each of her arias with character, pathos and purity of line. Her timbre is velvety, but there’s plenty of attack in fearsomely taxing arias such as Anna’s ‘Or sai chi l’onore’ and Fiordiligi’s ‘Come scoglio’. The runs in Elvira’s set-piece ‘Mi tradì quell’alma ingrata’ are well navigated, despite occasionally threatening to run off the rails.

I find Schultz a more convincing Contessa in Figaro than a Susanna; although she’s sung both roles, the Contessa is now a better fit vocally. There’s a directness to ‘Dove sono’ that cuts to the quick – no buttery legato here – aided by Antonello Manacorda’s purposeful tempo. I like the way Schultz tastefully embellishes the repeat. In ‘Sull’aria’, Simone Easthope’s Susanna is a charming foil to Schultz’s Contessa.

Indeed, Schultz enjoys fine support from all her colleagues. Amitai Pati is a tender Ferrando to her Fiordiligi in the duet ‘Fra gli amplessi in pochi istanti’ and I like Samuel Dale Johnson’s contribution as Almaviva in the final scene from Figaro, which closes the disc. She also enjoys tremendous backing from the Kammerakademie Potsdam, a versatile ensemble very much at home in Classical repertoire. Manacorda characteristically keeps things light and taut, which propels this enjoyable album forwards, an excellent showcase for one of today’s finest Mozartian singers.