Juan Diego Flórez - Mozart

The Guardian 80

Flórez/Orchestra La Scintilla/Minasi
(Sony)

Mozart hasn’t featured much in the stellar career of tenor Juan Diego Flórez, but this disc suggests that some roles at least could suit him very nicely. Not so much the fresh-faced, boyish heroes of The Magic Flute and Così Fan Tutte: in Tamino’s portrait aria his voice sounds honest but not easy or rapt, and Ferrando’s Un’Aura Amorosa exposes a tendency to start beneath the note and hoick the pitch upwards. Mozart’s monarchs, however, are a different story. Alexander the Great’s aria from Il Re Pastore sounds unassailably heroic; two arias for the titular emperor of La Clemenza di Tito find Flórez shaping smooth, firm lines, sounding imperial yet not imperious; King Idomeneo’s Fuor del Mar goes with a swagger, and a riproaring top D at the end. Throughout, and especially in the concert aria Misero … O Sogno, Riccardo Minasi’s orchestra is full of bounce, texture and character.