Five recital discs on my desk – three are from young tenors, one from a dead tenor, and the last from a tenor who sounds dead. A caveat first, I've not heard any of the three young singers in performance so what's below is solely based on what I hear on the CDs. What these performers are like live I can only guess.

 Dr Neil Kurtzman

While still under 40, Tito Beltrán has been around for a while though I seem to have missed him until now. The Chilean born but Swedish based singer is stuck with a label that's almost always fatal. He's not serious. This charge can mean almost anything that departs from the usual path for an artist, scientist, etc. Off the top of my head, the only artist I can think of who overcame not being "serious" was Leonard Bernstein who was so talented that he could beat just about anything. Beltrán who has been called The South American Lanza shows his non-serious nature on this recital which is modestly called:

TITO BELTRÁN
NESSUN DORMA
THE AMAZING TENOR

This as close as I can come on a word processor to reproducing the cover. The contents are a potpourri of arias and songs including "Amazing Grace". Nessun Dorma which was on the soundtrack of the movie "Bend it Like Beckham" is sung in an amended version which allows Beltrán to sing the final high note twice – more lack of seriousness. The high note (both of them) is good enough to hear three times. Apparently much of this material has been previously released on discs which I have not heard. Anyway, serious or not, Beltrán has a rich and beautiful voice with a free and finely produced top. His middle range is solid and has dark overtones. His breath control is outstanding and eerily he does sound like Lanza, which is great – Lanza, another non-serious artist, was wonderful.

Beltrán has earned outstanding reviews for his performances at the Staatsoper in Vienna. His repertoire is strictly lyric tenor which makes me wonder if his voice has been over-miked on this disc as it sounds larger than that required for Edgardo. He sings with feeling and enthusiasm which easily touches the listener. The quintessential Lanza song, "Be My Love", is on the recital. Beltrán's version deserves comparison with Lanza's and his English is very good though he does aspirate the last syllable of the song. (He's in good company – Björling commits the same sin. See below.) Also on the disc is "Caruso" which Pavarotti sang frequently. I prefer Beltrán's rendition. The recital closes with the masterful hymn "Amazing Grace". Beltrán pours on the schmaltz – purists may not like it, but I did. In short, this is a serious artist who deserves a wider audience.

The 26 year old Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja is definitely a serious artist. His debut album is simply entitled "Joseph Calleja, Tenor Arias". Decca has spared nothing. There's a chorus, soloists for the bit parts in some of the arias, and the conductor is Riccardo Chailly who handles everything with great authority. Being serious will take you a long way just as not being serious will hold you back. So what do we get from this young tenor who has attracted so much attention recently? A nice lyric tenor not unlike many that are spread over the operatic landscape.

This is an unfinished voice that may develop into something special in a few years. It's not anywhere near where Di Stefano's or Björling's voices were when they were 26 years old. Calleja has a rapid vibrato (a bleat if you don't like this mannerism and don't bring up Bonci) that I think will spontaneously disappear when the singer matures. It's not nearly as pronounced as Corelli's was in the early and mid fifties; Corelli worked very hard to rid himself of it. Calleja can't manage a trill and should not have attempted the poor excuse for one that is at the end of Parmi veder le lagrime. Similarly, he should not have attempted the high D at the end of Possente amor. Even the (lower) high note at the end of La donna e mobile is too open His tone is attractive but not as rich as Beltrán's or as Villazón's (see below), in fact it's on the small side for the arias on the disc. He tries to shade his voice at the appropriate places but sometimes looses full support which accentuates his vibrato (or bleat). Calleja also has not reached the point where he can add any unique emotional content to the music he performs. But everyone seems to have decided that this is a serious artist and his recital disc is near the top of the classical chart in the UK. I think a wait and see approach is best for this young singer.

With "Rolando Villazón – Italian Opera Arias" we get the whole package, a serious artist who delivers the goods. For starters, God gave the Mexican tenor (Mexico seems to be producing more fine tenors than the Dominican Republic does outstanding baseball players) the most beautiful lyric tenor since the youth of José Carreras. The voice is lush and "creamy". It retains its plangency up to its highest notes. Villazón also has something I don't think can be taught – he can change amplitude within a syllable so that his tone goes from soft to loud and back again in keeping with the emotional content of the music. The effect is quite beautiful and needs to be heard rather than read about. Di Stefano and Carreras had a similar gift. His phrasing is sheer beauty. This is a voice that's worth a special trip to hear. He's making his New York solo recital debut on October 11 at the Met – the Metropolitan Museum of Art- he has already sung at the other Met. He's also singing Romeo next January and February in Los Angeles opposite the Juliette of Anna Netrebko. I hope he sounds as good in the house as he does on this recording. Marcello Viotti conducts without getting in the way.

My only complaint about the recital is his singing of E lucevan le stelle. I was hoping for something close to Di Stefano, and I think Villazón is capable of approaching that high standard, but he sings the line le belle forme disciogliea dai veli in one breath which makes him rush over the word disciogliea which was where Di Stefano delivered one of his most magical effects. He'd have done better to take an extra breath and linger over disciogliea. The disc also includes two rarely performed Mascagni arias in addition to the usual chestnuts.

Back from the dead is "Jussi Björling reDiscovered". RCA has managed to put the complete Carnegie Hall recital of September 24, 1955 onto one CD – including all the encores. The collection contains 25 songs and arias (in English, German, French, Italian, and Swedish) – almost 80 minutes of music; nine of the selections have not previously been published. The concert hall was the ideal setting to appreciate Björling's artistry. No orchestra or chorus to get in the way of the great voice, no need to move around. Anybody who loves great singing will want this disc. Björling was in his best voice that night 50 years ago, which is to say he was just about as good as a tenor can get. If you were to design the perfect tenor what you'd get would be very close to what Jussi Björling was. The only nit I can pick is the aspirated final word of the Boheme aria – "dir". Björling makes it into a two syllable word. Incidentally, nobody does what Di Stefano does with that last word. It's another example of the magic he could conjure in the most unexpected places.

Björling is as comfortable in the songs as he is in the arias. The former outnumber the latter by about two to one. The recital includes "Il mio tesoro". RCA believes this was the only time Björling ever performed the aria on stage. Apparently, it was routinely cut when he was singing Don Ottavio in Stockholm. He manages it with ease, though he has a little more voice than one usually gets in this role – hardly a complaint. Buy the CD.

Sounding almost dead is Marcello Giordani on a collection of tenor arias from Naxos. Recorded in December of 2001, the disc was released at a bargain price in 2003. The Sicilian tenor was not in good vocal condition when he made these recordings. His voice sounds dry and the demanding selections he sings (Tell, Fille du regiment, Trovatore, etc) tax his upper register to the point where I felt he needed immediate medical attention. He gets all the high notes out, but it must have hurt like hell to do so. His indisposition was temporary, however, as I heard him in New York a year and half later where he sounded fine. Mr Giordani is capable of better work than that on this disc. I hope he gets another chance when he's in better shape.