The last time Erwin Schrott hit the news here was in April when he cancelled a planned Cadogan Hall recital, prompting a fiery announcement from the concert sponsor Ian Rosenblatt that he was suing the Uruguayan opera singer for breach of contract. Come the autumn, we will no doubt be hearing about the birth of the Schrott-Netrebko baby, currently in production with his fiancée Anna Netrebko, the glittering chandelier among soprano divas. Wedding bells will cascade next.

Today we have the first fruits of Schrott’s recording contract with Decca. This he didn’t cancel, and the CD, recorded with Riccardo Frizza and the suave Orquestra de la Comuni-tat Valenciana, allows us finally to concentrate on what matters, his voice. It’s a sensuous, velvety, flexible bass-baritone, most fondly recalled in the UK from his appearances as Leporello in Covent Garden’s Don Giovanni. The recital presents a mixed grill heavy with Mozart (six arias), with Verdi on the side (three), and single sprinklings of Berlioz, Gounod and Meyerbeer.

Variety! That’s a welcome ingredient, though to whisk from flighty Figaro (Se vuol ballare) to the doom-laden Banquo from Verdi’s Macbeth might seem a jolt too far. Plenty of variety, too, inside Schrott’s voice – an attractive attribute if making comparisons in the mind with the unvarying tenor glare of Decca’s other South American opera pin-up, Juan Diego Flórez.

Schrott knows how to change his voice’s colour, phrase by phrase, sometimes word by word, especially if the word is “Susannah”. As Figaro in the Mozart selections he’s attractively light and dancing; he can also drip with honey (Voici des roses from La Damnation de Faust) and scowl himself black (Meyerbeer’s Bertram, bound for Hell). Intimacy comes as easily, too, as the loud address: Philip’s monologue from Don Carlos (sung in French) conveys with unusual penetration the sense of someone thinking out loud, quiet and fearful.

Blips occur. His articulation fails in the racing words of the Don’s Fin ch’han dal vino. And with the wind in his sails, at the higher altitudes, he begins to suggest a foghorn, settling too rapidly for broad effects. Maybe time and experience will iron out these kinks – provided, that is, Schrott can find the space in his merry life at the top.

(Decca, TMS £12.99, call 0845 6026328)

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