When Karajan cast Gundula Janowitz as the Sieglinde in his Salzburg Ring, or Bernstein chose her as his Fidelio Leonore, eyebrows were raised at the prospect of a supposed “Mozart singer” in such repertoire. Yet both interpretations brought a radiant femininity to roles traditionally cast in a more hoyden-ish, hochdramatische way.

The repertoire on Orfeo's collection does reflect this width of Janowitz's carefully chosen range - but their selections may disappoint the serious collector. Five of the performances excerpted here have been issued already in their entirety, while others have circulated widely on unofficial issues. Surely ORF's rich radio archive (source of all this material) would yield both rarer alternative performances or other repertoire - the “live” Salzburg Walküre for one. It could have replaced the excruciating Karajan Poppea (OK, not the singer's fault) which should have been wiped at birth. In addition, not all of Orfeo's choices focus sufficiently on Janowitz. The Don Carlo duet (“Io vengo a domandar”) is more of an event for the tenor - Franco Corelli, thrilling after a nervous start - while the Fidelio quartet is hardly the place to show off a radical choice as Leonore.

Of the less familiar items the Act 1 scene from The Bartered Bride (1965, with Waldemar Kmentt, no less, as Hans auf deutsch) is touchingly emotional without over-sophistication, while the late “Dove sono” (1990, the year of the soprano's retirement) allows character and pain more maturely than in her famous early Mozart discs. There is, of course, important singing here, but the choice of items is less compelling than that Orfeo has already accorded to Mesdames Jurinac, Rysanek and Varady.