Is it beginning to look a lot like Christmas? Yes or no, we’re going to review a couple of Christmas albums — if only to give you time to listen to them before December 25 (if you so wish). Two noted singers have made albums for Deutsche Grammophon: Roberto Alagna and Anne Sofie von Otter.

Roberto Alagna
The Christmas album

Mr. Alagna, as you may well know, is a tenor born in France to Sicilian parents. He has made his album with Robin Smith, a British musician. Mr. Smith did the arrangements, and he leads the London Symphony Orchestra, plus associated forces (including no fewer than four choirs).

In a note published in the CD booklet, Mr. Alagna says that he asked himself whether he should sing his album in pop fashion or classically. He decided to do some of each. There is a great variety of songs here, sung in a variety of styles — and languages.

Christmas albums are heavily dependent on arrangements — if they are too vulgar, the album must fail. Mr. Smith is guilty of a bit of vulgarity. For instance, I could do without the fanfare before “Adeste fideles.” But you can’t please everyone, in every note, and Mr. Smith has considerable skill.

Mr. Alagna begins in a surprising and nice way — with a piece that he wrote himself. Called “Gentil Père Noël,” it’s pleasant and catchy. The composer sings it with two sensibilities: lyrical and heroic. When he cries “Noël! Noël!” you can really feel it. And that French is marvelous and clear.

The aforementioned “Adeste fideles” — “A Dusty Fiddle,” in my household — is a tenor anthem, the way Mr. Alagna sings it. Not bad. He then sings in English — “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” — and charmingly. A children’s chorus chirps with him.

“Silent Night” is present and accounted for, sung in three verses, and three languages: French, German, and English. Next we get a Romanian carol, suggested to Mr. Alagna by his wife, the soprano Angela Gheorghiu.

“Il est né, le divin Enfant” is the province of every French singer, and Mr. Alagna takes care to include it. I don’t know what to think of the primitive drumming in Mr. Smith’s arrangement, but it’s interesting. The biggest French carol of all — “Cantique de Noël,” or “O Holy Night” — is present too, and Mr. Alagna sings it rather more lustily than angelically: but it’s not ineffective.

He sings Schubert’s “Ave Maria” like a pop song. Why, I don’t know, given that it’s a classic lied. “Jingle Bells” is very corny and very appealing. Tell me now, did you ever think you’d hear Roberto Alagna singing “Jingle Bells”? He also sings “The First Nowell,” with gulps and scoops. It’s not especially elegant, but it works, somehow.

There is a new piece here — besides Mr. Alagna’s — composed expressly for this album: “The Love of a Child,” by Russ Ballard and Chris Winter. The liner notes call it a “beautiful, timeless classic” — couldn’t they have waited a few weeks before declaring it that? I’m not sure this song will last beyond New Year’s.

The main interest of “Guardian Angels” is that it was co-written by Harpo Marx, the distinguished harpist. (With his brothers, he also worked in comedy.) I had a sweet and nostalgic moment when the needle reached “Mille cherubini in coro”: I heard another tenor, Carlo Bergonzi, sing it years ago.

On the penultimate track, Mr. Smith gives us a mad arrangement of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” — one of the most mispunctuated titles in history — but it is curiously fascinating. And Mr. Alagna ends with “White Christmas,” which he sings in the feyest, weirdest voice in the history of the world. He sounds like Truman Capote, if Capote sang. Mr. Smith’s arrangement is as strange as the singer’s performance.

But I enjoyed this album, for all its peculiarity. It has sincerity, verve, and a Christmas spirit. A listener could do worse.

ANNE SOFIE VON OTTER
Noël

Anne Sofie von Otter’s new album is “Noël,” but it is not her first — not her first Christmas album, that is. Previously, the Swedish mezzo-soprano made “Home for Christmas,” an endearing and distinguished effort. “Noël” is done with her longtime accompanist, Bengt Forsberg.

They perform many Scandinavian songs, and no one is better at them than Ms. von Otter. The most interesting of these songs is Grieg’s “Julens vuggesang” — “Christmas Cradle Song” — featuring downward chromatic notes. Ms. von Otter exhibits her legendary technical control.

There are several English songs, and Ms. von Otter is wonderfully idiomatic in this language. She even knows how to sing “heav’n’s” correctly. Ms. von Otter includes a Roger Quilter carol — “The Cradle in Bethlehem” — and an excellent song by a little-known composer, Michael Head: “The Three Mummers.”

Ms. von Otter’s French is as good as her English, and there are two French songs on this disc: by Chaminade and Gounod. Ms. von Otter likes Cécile Chaminade so much, she — and Mr. Forsberg — devoted an entire album to her. Chaminade’s Christmas song is “Le Noël des oiseaux,” a neat little piece. Gounod’s is “Noël,” grand like an opera aria.

Our mezzo sings some lieder, including one of the most famous Christmas lieder of all, “Mariä Wiegenlied” by Reger. She treats it with love and respect.

And how about some Spanish music? Ms. von Otter gives us four carols by Joaquín Nin y Castellanos, which are in different Spanish dialects. I have said that she is a master of Scandinavian song. But, remarkably, she is perfectly at home in these Spanish songs, too — and in everything else she tries. She is simply a natural, a true musical intelligence. Her latest Christmas album provides the expected satisfaction.