Radvanovsky is the international Norma of choice at the moment and she sings ‘big’, lacking perhaps the legato that Bellini’s long-limbed melodies demand,. But Joyce DiDonato, making her debut as Adalgisa, knows exactly how to handle this music and indeed the great duet ‘Mira o Norma’ is thrilling and deeply moving…Rizzi is, as ever, the safest pair of hands in this repertoire.

In Radvanovsky and DiDonato the Met production has two singers at the height of their formidable powers…Rizzi’s love for the score comes across in every bear; he conducts the Met orchestra superbly and they play gloriously for him. David McVicar deserves praise for bringing out such moving acting from Radvanovsky and DiDonato in particular but the production itself is less satisfying…Happily, though, none of this significantly detracts from some glorious central performances, conducting and playing.

[Radvanovsky] here appears at the peak of her powers. She is not the most complete Norma on disc, but her singing is superbly poised from start to finish…DiDonato’s achievement is even more significant…[Rizzi’s] tempos are so well judged and rhythmically flexible, the orchestral sonorities so unfailingly appropriate, that he deserves much credit for the success of the performance. As does the director David McVicar, who enriches the spiritually inspired musical dramaturgy of Bellini and Romani with the deeper understanding we now have of druidic culture.