Rolando Villazón may not be everyone’s idea of a Mozartian stylist. Yet as his survey of this neglected area of Mozart’s output confirms, the Mexican tenor is temperamentally incapable of being bland or emotionally disengaged. If his once bronzed, burnished timbre has lost some of its lustre and high notes can be effortful, he rises to the challenge of the impassioned ‘Misero!…Aura che intorno spiri’, surely the finest of Mozart’s tenor concert arias. He sensitively softens his tone in the aria’s plaintive opening and hurls himself with a desperate, abandoned intensity into the Allegro, where the condemned lover goes half-crazed with grief. Although his coloratura can be bumpy, with awkward transitions between registers, Villazón musters a fine heroic ardour for the pre-pubescent composer’s Metastasio setting ‘Va’, dal furor’, and the obsequious homage to the Salzburg Prince-Archbishop Schrattenbach, ‘Or che il dover’.

Stylistic reservations centre above all on Villazón’s intermittent scoops and slides, apt enough for Puccini but liable to sound soupy in Mozart. Intonation, too, tends to the flat side of the note. I noticed this particularly in his otherwise eloquent performance of the dignified ‘Se al labbro’ (composed for the first Idomeneo, Anton Raaff), and at the opening of ‘Per pietà, non ricercate’, a superbly expressive ‘insertion’ aria composed for a Viennese revival of Anfossi’s Il curioso indiscreto. (As a born competitor, Mozart doubtless relished the superiority of his own music to its surroundings.) For a refined sense of Mozartian style and a more even tone production, go to Léopold Simoneau in ‘Per pietà’ (Orfeo), and Francisco Araiza in ‘Se al labbro’ (Philips).

Paid-up Villazón fans will of course ignore my provisos. In any case, the tenor’s ardour and dramatic energy ensure that enjoyment usually outweighs frustration, not least in the comic patter song ‘Clarice cara mia sposa’, zestfully done, complete with deadpan interjections from Antonio Pappano’s light baritone. Back in the day job, Pappano gets vital, elegant playing from the LSO, who fully match Villazón’s fire in the faster numbers. There’s an engaging booklet interview with conductor and singer, though – familiar complaint – I wish the note had provided a dramatic context for the various insertion arias.