Recording of the Week, Verdi albums from Joseph Calleja and Sonya Yoncheva

Today sees the release of a pair of outstanding, fearlessly sung Verdi recitals from two singers nearing the height of their considerable powers: Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja and Bulgarian soprano Sonya Yoncheva, last seen together going up in smoke in the Royal Opera House's new Norma in 2016 and both currently making waves on different sides of the Atlantic in Tosca. (Calleja partnered Angela Gheorghiu – who makes two stellar cameos on his album – at Covent Garden last week, whilst Yoncheva debuted the title-role at the Metropolitan Opera: I caught the second act on the radio in the company of an elderly (and very exacting!) neighbour who told me that it was the most complete and compelling assumption he'd heard since Callas).

Neither singer is a stranger to Verdi (Calleja has had huge success in lyric assignments like Gabriele Adorno, Alfredo, and the Duke in Rigoletto, whilst Violetta was one of the roles which really put Yoncheva on the international map), but both albums explore more dramatic repertoire which they've yet to assume on stage: Calleja includes excerpts from Aida, Il trovatore, La forza del destino, Don Carlo and Otello, and Yoncheva traces a fascinating path from the composer's ingénues to grande dames like Elisabetta in Don Carlo and the ruthless Babylonian princess Abigaille in Nabucco, which contains some of Verdi's most fearsomely demanding writing.

She rises to the challenge with almost audacious assurance, spitting out the coloratura with venomous aplomb as the vengeful anti-heroine vows to ascend the 'blood-soaked golden throne' and capping the aria (and album) with a top C that takes no prisoners. It's hard to believe that this is a singer who specialised in baroque repertoire until not so long ago (indeed she returns to the role of Monteverdi's Poppea at Salzburg this summer), but the voice has lost none of its flexibility and precision as it's taken on additional weight and colour: as with Calleja, we're always conscious that both the music and the singers themselves have a solid grounding in the bel canto tradition, and the sense of line and cantabile is one of the things which makes both of these discs a triumph. This is particularly evident in the excerpts from the earlier operas, which Yoncheva treats like top-drawer Verdi: the laments of Odabella (Attila) and Luisa Miller showcase the almost mezzoish tints in her full and free middle and lower registers, and the pathos which she brings to the erring wife Lina's prayer for forgiveness from Stiffelio make it fit to stand alongside the great Ave Maria from Otello which follows a couple of tracks later.

Otello himself is the beating heart of Calleja's recital, and what a showing he makes: my sceptical neighbour wasn't the only one to issue dire warnings about the dangers attendant on taking on this heaviest of roles with a voice that's made its mark in lyric repertoire, but his misgivings were swept aside about 30 seconds into the love-duet (where Gheorghiu contributes a Desdemona of such fragile tenderness that it made me long to hear the pair of them in a full production – she recently told me that her one condition for taking on the role is that Calleja will be her 'superbo guerrier!').

Calleja is already supremely alive to the character's vulnerability and volatility, and his golden tone has now darkened to a gleaming bronze which cleaves through the heavy orchestration in the two great monologues with easy clarity: on this showing, dare I say it, his ringing, open tone seems more naturally suited to the role than Jonas Kaufmann's darker, more covered sound. Stylistically and temperamentally, too, he seems more at home in this repertoire than his German counterpart, never afraid to add faintly old-school expressive effects such as the slight sob in the voice which creeps into both Otello's music and Manrico's cavatina from Trovatore, though nothing ever seems contrived or histrionic. Indeed, what makes both these albums recordings to treasure is the unaffected, passionate singing on display from two singers who will surely go on to take these roles by storm on the world's greatest stages: bravi tutti!