Soprano Sandrine Piau may be best known as a baroque specialist, but as anyone who has ever heard her in a song recital will confirm, her wonderful musicality and refinement are just as effective in a much wider repertoire. Her first collection of arias 12 years ago was devoted to Mozart; this sequel is a reminder of what a fine Mozartean she is. Opera from Mitridate to Don Giovanni are represented, and the album comes with the title of Desperate Heroines. This may be stretching things as far as the two numbers from Figaro are concerned – Barbarina’s tiny L’ho Perduta from the fourth act, and Susanna’s Deh Vieni from the third – but fits Donna Anna’s Non Mi Dir from Don Giovanni, Ilia’s Se Il Padre Perdei from Idomeneo, and two of Sandrina’s arias from La Finta Giardiniera well enough. Piau may be just too knowing to convince as Barbarina, but she’s a thrilling Anna, and wonderfully stylish in the extracts from the early opera serias, Mitridate and Lucio Silla. She’s a very fine, intelligent artist, and Ivor Bolton and the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra accompany her most sympathetically.