This recording of Bellini's final opera, I Puritani, was made in 2017 and not released until the second half of 2021. Perhaps it was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, but marketing factors may also have played a role. The recording is a bit of an oddity, made in Kaunas, Lithuania, far from the usual operatic centers, and featuring two American stars and a group of Lithuanian singers (and one Kazakh). As it happens, it's a fine reading of the opera with many attractions bel canto buffs should check out. One for American listeners is that it offers a preview of conductor Constantine Orbelian, who, despite his U.S. birth, has worked mostly in the former Soviet countries but has now been appointed music director and principal conductor of the New York City Opera. His style is brisk, and he doesn't try to find more than is there in the rather schematic plot set during the English Civil War. However, he doesn't constrict the singers, who are uniformly good. The chief draw is tenor Lawrence Brownlee, who has been hitting his stride with a group of excellent Italian opera performances just as there is movement toward bringing racial diversity to the operatic scene, and his singing here, rich and relaxed in high registers, is going to help him along. No less of a pleasure is soprano Sarah Coburn as Elvira, a role that has frustrated some of the biggest names in the business. Coburn enters fully into the text, and both singers offer some high notes that others avoid. Furthermore, the complete opera is performed; it is often cut in an attempt to move things along, but here, with Orbelian at the helm, it holds together just fine. The sound tends to make Coburn and Brownlee a bit distant where one wishes one could approach them more closely, but their strong singing comes through in the end. Those who have passed this recording by for its lack of star power should give it another look.