Album: Erwin Schrott, Arias (Sony Classical)

Though blessed with smouldering Latin looks, the Uruguayan bass-baritone Erwin Schrott is forced to tackle the parade of reprobates and villains that is the appointed round of his vocal range.

Thus does he lower darkly through Pagano's cuckold fury in "Sciagurata!", and exult gleefully in Scarpia's machinations towards Tosca in "Tre Sbirri, una Carrozza". Elsewhere, he attacks the "Toreador Song" from Carmen with the burly manner of the embattled bull itself, but Schrott finds perhaps his most rewarding role as Mefistofele in Boito's version of the Faust myth, reaching a feverish pitch of disgust as he derides mankind in "Ave Signor" and "Ecco il Mondo".

Download: Ave Signor; Ecco il Mondo; Despierta, Negro