This solo debut doesn’t so much throw down the gauntlet as hurl it into the listener’s face. Without so much as a nice-to-meet-you recitative, let alone an orchestral introduction (a single, snatched bar is all we get), Brazilian sopranist Bruno de Sá is off, joining the runaway semiquaver train of Alessandro Scarlatti’s ‘Dì, che sogno’ at top speed and dizzying altitude. It’s a bold start to ‘Roma travestita’ – a heady combination of new talent and new repertoire (almost half the tracks are premiere recordings) that’s hard to fault.

Sopranists are clearly the new countertenors. No sooner had Venezuela’s Samuel Mariño signed with Decca earlier this year than Warner announced de Sá as their own exclusive signing. The two artists have markedly different instruments and, on the strength of their label debuts, equally different ambitions.

De Sá’s may be the more classic path – his recital focuses on 18th-century castrato repertoire from the period of Pope Sixtus V’s ban on female performers in Rome – but his voice is much more interesting. There’s such an ease to an instrument that skims all the way up to a top D here (with no apparent strain), whose agility never comes at the expense of tone colour: pure but without a hint of querulousness or affectation, strongly projected and articulated.

De Sá joins forces with classical kingmakers Il Pomo d’Oro, directed here by Francesco Corti. No expense is spared, with pairs of oboes, bassoons, flutes and horns, and even the novelty of a jangling psaltery (for Vinci’s ‘Lascerò d’esser spietata’ from Farnace) joining the strings. It’s a breadth of texture de Sá is more than capable of matching, whether in the cantering, full-bodied energy of Cocchi’s ‘Nobil onda’ or the supple sweetness of García Fajer’s ‘Grato oblio, soave pace’ (just tipping us into the 19th century) with its coaxing flutes. And you get the feeling it would be just as good in the opera house; there’s a penetrating focus to de Sá’s tone that suggests a voice more than happy to get out of the studio.

De Sá’s musicality sings through in his phrasing and da capos that are as unfailingly musical as they are showstopping. There are so many unfamiliar names and arias here, selected with typical care by Yannis François – highlights include Rinaldo di Capua’s Mozartian ‘Nell’orror di notte oscura’ and the powerfully dramatic recitative and aria ‘Padre germano … Vadasi pure a morte’ from Nicola Conforto’s Claudia Livia vestale – but it’s hard to look past the highest of high-wire arias: Galuppi’s ‘Qual pellegrino errante’ with its endless top Ds. Sopranists may be the next big thing, but it’ll be a rare one indeed who can beat this.