It was good to see and hear this tenor back in action at the end of 2012 with this not-so-everyday Verdi programme and for Covent Garden performances of La bohème. The recital on disc proceeds chronologically. The orchestrations of the romanze performed here are by Berio and, pace his own detailed note on his publisher UE’s website, are more 19th-century traditional than his modernistic adventure with the completed Turandot.

The arias from the earlier operas are intriguing beyond their vocal opportunities. Right from his starting point in the late 1830s – even taking as a given the practice of orchestrating late in the day once he had heard the chosen singers – Verdi sought to provide settings for the emotions of his characters that brought the orchestra (especially its wind and string principals) as fully into the drama as Wagner was to claim credit for. Also, his selection of forms is distinctive and, compared to Bellini, Donizetti and even Rossini, unconventional.

The nature of then contemporary Italian music drama liked extreme melodrama – eg Riccardo in Oberto has just killed the hero, Jacopo in Foscari and Corrado in Corsaro are in lonely, desperate states and Oronte (Lombardi) in love with a captive, Giselda, of an unapproachably different creed. But it is clear that Verdi already is probing one degree deeper to find the psychology behind the cartoon of crude action.

Villazón has made an interesting choice of programme. Even his more ‘pop’ items are not clichéd – Carlo’s opening monologue, Fenton in Windsor Forest, the ‘Ingemisco’ from the Requiem. His sense of style and occasion are as unbridled as ever, the top of the voice not quite as free as it once was. Noseda, for British ears now out of Manchester mufti with his Turin company orchestra, has the taste not to try to make a whole opera out of each aria.