Giacomo Puccini’s tragic operas Tosca and Madam Butterfly – the former set in Rome in 1800 and premiered in the city a hundred years later and the latter set in Japan and first performed in Milan – are best-known for their famous arias Vissi d’arte (I lived for art) and Un bel di (One fine day) respectively.

The CBSO however delivered purely orchestral versions in two symphonic suites that were reimagined and conducted by Carlo Rizzi, the former music director and presently conductor laureate of the Welsh National Opera.

Making his debut with the orchestra, Rizzi explained in the programme notes that his adaptations were true to the original orchestrations without adding anything extra to “cover” for any perceivable lack of vocal line.

For those familiar with the operas, the suites seemed to take on a storytelling power of their own, delivering the emotional highs and lows in a dramatic and at times sublime way as if they were themselves characters in the great dramas. It was just a pity that neither work was longer than twenty minutes in length.

Just as it proved that Puccini the opera composer was also a great orchestrator, the CBSO demonstrated that his early 20th century contemporary Ottorino Respighi was also both a dazzling orchestrator and a vivid song maker.

Respighi composed Il Tramonto (The Sunset) based on the poem of the same name by Percy Bysshe Shelley about a romantic encounter leading to a sudden death and the lasting emotional impact it had on the lover left behind.

Singaporean British mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron, looking glamorous in a pale pink and peach see-through dress, sang the 17-minute song – the words translated for the audience on a screen above the choir stalls – with a velvety feminine tone, expressively melancholic in her depiction of loss.

Respighi’s The Pines of Rome has remained one of the most popular of three symphonic poems he wrote about the Eternal City – the others being The Fountains of Rome and Roman Festivals.

Using the full palate of the orchestra, Rizzi conducted the four-movement work with a passion, leading the audience along the avenues and through the history of Rome with evocative descriptions as surely as the composer intended.

From the jubilant echoes of children playing in the Villa Borghese gardens, the mood changed to the doleful stillness of the Catacombs, before a moonlit night at the Janiculum Hill presented an opportunity for some beautiful clarinet playing followed by the pre-recorded singing of a nightingale.

The work finished with a thunderous rhythm depicting a Roman legion marching along the Appian Way. The crescendo of brass and percussion was amplified by an additional six trombonists and trumpeters playing offstage.

The decibel level at the conclusion of the piece was almost two much to bear but it rounded off a wonderful concert programme will remain ‘memorabile’.

The CBSO will perform Brahms’ German Requiem conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth with the soprano Sophie Bevan, baritone Gareth Brynmore John and the CBSO Chorus at Symphony Hall on Thursday, April 23rd at 7.30pm. For tickets call 0121 780 3333 or book online at cbso.co.uk.