A touch of class: Juan Diego Florez brings charm, finesse and good old-fashioned razzle-dazzle to a program of tenor favorites.(Sound Recording Review)

Juan Diego Florez "GREAT TENOR ARIAS" by Gluck, Cimarosa, Rossini, Donizetti, Halevy, Verdi, Puccini Orchestra Sinfonica e Coro di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Rizzi. Texts and translations. Decca B0003136

Sprinting and scampering through the technical hurdles of his signature repertoire, Juan Diego Florez brings to mind the Energizer Bunny, so eager and irresistibly vigorous is the Peruvian tenor's handling of bel canto tools. Yet with the charm and finesse he brings to page after page of roulades, leaps, fioritura and arpeggios, a better comparison might be to Fred Astaire.

In a new recital offering from Decca, Carlo Rizzi and the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, with its excellent wind soloists, provide a perfect setting for Florez to work from his strengths, and to branch out a bit. While there is plenty of visceral excitement, as in his earlier Rossini disc, here the young tenor is able to bring dramatic focus to the excerpts and to characterize through the music.

At the heart of the recital is Florez's seasoned "Languir per una bella," Lindoro's opening aria from L'Italiana in Algeri. With even more assurance than he brought to the Metropolitans production last season, the tenor lays out his Rossini credentials in an elegant, beautifully supple voicing of the opening phrase, with both upward and downward portamentos gracing the line. Florez takes his time with the cavatina, teasing out a soft repeat before launching into the unrelenting athletics of the sparkling, high-lying allegro, but the vocal workout leaves the tenor so refreshed that he has reserves and wit enough to make a little echo effect out of one of the aria's toughest phrases.

The only other Rossini excerpt is Idreno's scene and aria, "La speranza piu soave," from Semiramide, an even more vigorous and stylistically challenging piece. Once again, Florez offers subtle turns of phrase and elegant diminuendos, along with unflagging stamina through arpeggios, leaps, chromatics, trills and high C-sharps.

Florez brings some attractive swagger to "Feste, pompe? Omaggi? Onori?" from Donizetti's Italian version of La Figlia del Regimento, with its Rossini-style patter, and in the preceding recitative he shows Tonio to be an ...