Given that Jonas Kaufmann has recently taken on the role of Des Grieux, first in London and then in Munich, it is a fair bet that one or both of those stage productions will soon turn up on DVD. There has not been a new audio-only recording of Manon Lescaut on a major label for the best part of 20 years. Might this Decca set, a showcase for Andrea Bocelli, turn out to be the last?

The balance places the orchestra so close that it is possible to hear the players turning their pages, while the chorus seem to be banished to the back of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia. When the star enters, he is up front with a glamorous acoustic glow around him. This takes a while to get used to, though it is not unpleasant, and Bocelli makes a lighter-than-usual, youthful-sounding Des Grieux. At his best he sings with broad phrasing and a natural Italianate colour and style. When the voice comes under pressure, though, it has no depth of tone to call upon and the sound quickly turns shallow and hard.

At his side Ana María Martínez offers a class act as Manon, youthful, spirited, with quickness of emotion alongside a hard-bitten streak, though the voice is apt to turn thin and a touch shrill at the top. The three supporting men – Matthew Peña as Edmondo, Javier Arrey as Lescaut and Maurizio Muraro as the characterful, older Geronte – are well cast. The Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana are not in the top league. Though Plácido Domingo, as conductor, puts on spurts of energy at high-powered moments, much elsewhere is flaccid and rather foursquare. For comparison I took down off the shelf the 1993 Metropolitan Opera recording, also from Decca, with Freni and Pavarotti. Neither was in the first flush of youth by this point, but what vocal and orchestral magnificence. Nothing here compares.