'Tetelman is the real deal’ was how I concluded my review of the Chilean-American tenor’s debut album last year (10/22). It’s tempting to just copy and paste the rest of that review here, for Jonathan Tetelman has bowled me over yet again. For his follow-up, DG has boarded an early bandwagon bound for the centenary of Giacomo Puccini’s death (which is not until November 29, 2024) with an album dedicated to the composer. It’s prime territory for Tetelman – his Cavaradossi impressed me when I saw him in Vienna last year – and he sounds the perfect fit for each of the roles here.

And what a sound! Tetelman’s tenor possesses gleaming brightness, and his open vowels and excellent Italian diction make him the sunniest-sounding tenor since Luciano Pavarotti. He has a golden tone, with liquid phrasing, tenderness and ardour in equal measure. What’s especially impressive is how there is absolutely no sense of strain; when I’ve seen him live, there has been a tendency to press a little too hard on the throttle, but the ‘money notes’ here have an easy ring and don’t sound forced at all, while soft phrases have a honeyed quality. Des Grieux’s ‘Donna non vidi mai’ from Manon Lescaut is gorgeously done and there’s glamour in Dick Johnson’s two blink-and-you-miss-them solos from La fanciulla del West. Carlo Rizzi draws warm support from the PKF Prague Philharmonia.

This is a bit more than a disc of arias. Yes, there are the prime cuts of the Puccini tenor repertory – ‘Che gelida manina’ (tender), ‘E lucevan le stelle’ (poetic), ‘Nessun dorma’ (thrilling) – but you also get less-performed operas such as La rondine, Il tabarro and Le Villi represented, too. Impressively, DG has hired a roster of six other soloists so that, for example, we get the Act 3 quartet from La bohème and the Jailer’s cameo appearance before Cavaradossi’s ‘E lucevan le stelle’, complete with orchestral prelude (the Czech band has a fine cello section).

Federica Lombardi is luxury casting as Mimì in a balmy ‘O soave fanciulla’ and it’s good to hear Vida Miknevičiu¯te˙ again (she appeared on the last album) as Giorgetta in the duet from Tabarro, where Tetelman demonstrates he has the requisite steel for Luigi. Pinkerton’s arioso ‘Addio, fiorito asil’ featured on the first album, so Madama Butterfly is represented here by the trio with Sharpless and Suzuki (Önay Köse and Rihab Chaieb respectively).

The supporting cast is only applied selectively, though, so there’s no grumbling Sacristan in ‘Recondita armonia’, no Liù or Timur in ‘Non piangere, Liù’ (which ends after Calaf’s solo section) and, crucially, no chorus in ‘Nessun dorma’. If I was Turandot, heads would roll … but that doesn’t prevent this being a highly recommendable disc and I hope DG affords Tetelman a full Puccini opera recording soon, please.