This is a very attractive record. Battle sings cleanly in well-articulated French and tackles a wide range of soprano arias, in all of which she is able to stand comparison with great figures of the present and the past. In the two extracts from Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette, she sings the brilliant waltz-song, “Je veux vivre” with just the right sense of tension infused with gaiety. Gounod composed this at the behest of his prima donna, Mme Carvalho, who had to cut the Act 4 aria, “Amour, ranime mon courage”, as it was too heavy for her voice. (Or perhaps the music was just too modern, difficult to imagine now.) Battle does it with fine dramatic sense and doesn’t shirk the trills. In the Act 2 scene for Marie from Donizetti’s La fille du regiment, she decorates the cabaletta with different, but equally elaborate, variations as Sutherland in the classic 1968 Decca set (now on CD, 11/86). It is interesting to compare Battle in the Donizetti, the...