So, Mimì’s hand is frozen again. With Anna Netrebko still circling the globe in glory, it was only a matter of months before a complete CD recording let the soprano get her tonsils around Puccini’s most pathetic heroine.

The present account, with Rolando Villazón as Mimì’s garret lover Rodolfo, derives from concert performances in Munich last April with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. It is succulently dramatic – a tribute both to the stars’ power and the conductor Bertrand de Billy’s dramatic ability to steer the score at the drop of a note from uproarious jollity to the shiver that spells death.

Villazón, of course, comes up to the mike first, bustling through the opening garret scene with an electricity that immediately separates him from Boaz Daniel’s Marcello and the other bohemian chums. Villazón’s Rodolfo radiates Latin heat throughout: every mood, from ripping bravado through tender concern to abject loss, is vigorously yet tastefully conveyed.

Frailty may not be Netrebko’s middle name, but she dampens her force sufficiently to be fairly convincing as the heroine doomed to have happiness snatched away by poverty, a cough, and the Paris cold. Finding the right balance between Mimì’s ill health and a diva’s lung power is never easy: Netrebko comes closest in her impressive D’onde lieta in Act III.

Yet even if her characterisation remains more superficial than Villazón’s, the two voices play in tandem very nicely. And the ending packs the emotional punch essential for any successful La Bohème. Mimì fades, Rodolfo sobs: the tragedy is complete.

No one surrounding them sounds bland. There’s a raucous splendour about the Act II choruses; under de Billy’s baton this Latin Quarter is particularly unbuttoned. Nicole Cabell’s Musetta is also noteworthy: there’s not just winking in her waltz, there’s vulnerability too. Because of the sound balance, other voices elbow her out of the following ensemble; but that’s the only notable flaw in a recording bristling with the excitement of a live performance. Throughout, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra displays genuine snap and crackle; I’m not sure if I’ve quite come round from those final chords shaking us out of Act III.

(Deutsche Grammophon, TMS £24.99, call 0845 6026328)

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