This CD represents something of a triumph not for one young artist but for two. ENO's new music director, Edward Gardner, conducts the accompaniments, with the Academy of St Martin's on fine form. Kate Royal matches him precisely. Each item is beautifully vocalised, but she too is alert to detail. In the Ravel Vocalise en forme de habanera, she finesses her tone and colour and even her pitch to give us the sensual, Spanish, hot-summer-afternoon feel of the piece. In Delibes's Les filles de Cadix, her trills are a delight, but so is the immediacy of her response to the rhythms.

Royal’s voice is just sublime; rich, warm and pure, it is able to be both lightly playful in Canteloube’s “Malurous qu’o uno fenno”, and languorously dreamy in Strauss’s “Wiegenlied”...What really sets her apart, though, is her ability to get under the skin of a song’s lyrics to take on their emotions...Royal is much more than just a beautiful voice. This is music and singing to savour.

Creamy and pure, Royal's voice is directly in the aristocratic line of Kiri Te Kanewa and Reneé Fleming