“My Cherubino makes the listener ask, ‘What is this?’ My goal is to get reactions from the audience.”

Indeed, the Venezuelan male soprano Samuel Mariño – a genuine soprano, not a falsettist – provokes and confronts in equal measure in this program of Classical-era soprano arias, some famous, others receiving their first recordings. Yet there is nothing overtly outrageous here, no solecisms or lapses in taste. The artists come with impeccable HIP credentials. The performances are as stylish and elegant as one could hope for in this repertoire.

Even the booklet cover featuring a flamboyantly attired Mariño, and comments such as “I am from the 21st century and the no-gender generation” shouldn’t raise any eyebrows. No, the key to what makes these recordings so different lies in another statement from Mariño: “I’m not making a piece for a museum – I am making live art.”

Again, by itself not especially controversial. But taken together with the facts that Mariño is a man singing roles traditionally assigned to female artists, including those written for contralto; that his interpretations are unfailingly empathetic and universalising; and that his cadenzas...