Evelino Pidò conducts magnificently. Quite simply, Natalie Dessay is the most accomplished and the most affecting Amina on record since Callas.

This is a lively, alert Sonnambula. Natalie Dessay is a particularly wakeful Amina, bright-voiced in the French tradition, sensitive and intelligent… Even so, there is not a great deal of imagination in the singing until it comes to the final aria, "Ah, non credea mirarti", and there Dessay does indeed give a most lovely performance, singing with deep feeling and warm tone.

Pidò's 2006 Sonnambula (taken from a live concert in Lyon) catches Natalie Dessay at her mercurial, fearless best as the eponymous sleepwalker. Now making waves in heavier repertoire, Italian Francesco Meli is a robust but graceful Elvino.

Bellini's delightful jeu d'esprit on the theme of sleepwalking is splendidly realised in this skilled production. Natalie Dessay is in commanding form as Amina, gracefully scaling and descending the concluding passage of "Sovra il sen la man mi posa" and combining beautifully with Francesco Meli's Elvino for exquisite duets of "D'un pensiero e d'un accento" and the gently mannered "Vedi, o madre, è afflitto e mesto".

Supreme Natalie. She was the pretext to this Sonnambula performed in concert version at the Opéra de Lyon and later at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris. Natalie Dessay, all radiance, virtuosity and musicality most naturally triumphed in a repertoire where she has few equals in this day. Not to mention Evelino Pidò’s superb conducting