There is one reason for acquiring this new recording of Rossini’s Otello and that is the chance it offers to hear on record the young English soprano Jessica Pratt. Trained in Sydney and in Rome, she has been much sought-after these last three years in soprano roles of the Italian ottocento, of which Rossini’s Desdemona is one of the earliest and most richly imagined. In June she sang the ferociously difficult title-role in Rossini’s Armida at Garsington, the opera’s British stage premiere.

The 1978 Philips recording of Otello has Frederica von Stade as Desdemona with a strong cast which includes José Carreras as Otello, Gianfranco Pastine as Iago and Salvatore Fisichella as Rodrigo. Pratt is every bit as fine as von Stade, the voice free, flexible and finely schooled, her engagement with the role fairly complete, both in the high drama of Act 2 where the opera finally embraces tragedy and in the Willow Song, Prayer and death scene in the superb third act.

As a singer, Pratt is in a different league from most of the Wildbad cast, though happily there is a passable Otello, Michael Spyres, and a sympathetic Emilia, Geraldine Chauvet, so the final act is persuasively done. Both Otello and Iago are under-characterised by Rossini and his librettist. Since neither has a set-piece aria, actor-singers could usefully be engaged, not least for the accompanied recitative of Iago’s entrapment scene where words matter. Unfortunately, Giorgio Trucco is not that man. Nor should Filippo Adami have been taxed with the critically important high tenor role of Rodrigo. He simply isn’t up to it.

The orchestral contribution under Antonino Fogliani is rough-and-ready, the live recording no great shakes. The theatre acoustic has a boxy feel and though singers are generally on mike the whole thing is some way from being studio quality.

The set doesn’t begin to compete with the fine Philips version from the late ’70s but there are some sapphires in the mud, enough to give the bargain-hunter a taste of what, at best, this strangely challenging opera is all about.