On 20 February last year, he had granted a special encore: the nine high Cs of “Pour mon âme” in Donizetti’s La fille du régiment, a tour de force that some tenors don’t even manage to tackle. The audience had burst in ecstatic applause. Some had said that the encore was a step back, but such is Juan Diego Flórez: he likes to share the gift that enables him to reach and maintains the heights of his register with the greatest ease. And he shares with many the idea that in opera who excels has the right to some exception if it helps keep the old rite of melodrama.

After this tremendous success Juan Diego Flórez returns to La Scala for a much-awaited recital. The programme on 28 January starts with Mozart’s Magic Flute and Re Pastore, then Bellini’s Bianca e Fernando, Rossini’s Elisabetta, Regina d’Inghilterra. After a short break with Rosa Mercedes Ayarza de Morales he ends with the sublime: two arias from Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice and one from Donizetti’s Linda di Chamounix. A repertoire in which Flórez stands no comparison.