Devieilhe’s singing lights up the good, the bad and the music of Ambroise Thomas with her vivid, pure tone and apparently limitless breath. Alexandre Tharaud pops in as a sensitive piano partner; Les Siècles and François-Xavier Roth offer idiomatic, dusky, gut-lined softness and clarity in the orchestral numbers.

Roth exploits the period instruments of Les Siècles to emphasise the sheer variety of orchestral colours on display (captured in excellent sound) and accompanies with sensitivity. Devieilhe, meanwhile, has a wonderfully instinctive and apparently effortless way with this music...All in all, this refreshing, fascinating and beguiling album is impossible to resist. Highly recommended.

she displays her technical prowess — needlepoint coloratura and staccato singing with a more than decent trill — in three extracts from a favourite role: Lakmé, by Delibes...[the Flower Duet] could hardly be bettered.

Delage’s Quatre Poèmes Hindous, in which the well-travelled composer makes a Western chamber ensemble sound unnervingly like sarod, sitar and Indian flute, are especially beguiling...Devieilhe is mesmerising, sounding deliciously clear and radiant, and sings with a sensuality that seems absolutely innate.