It was not surprising, therefore, that songs by Bellini and Rossini, coupled as they were on Wednesday's program with arias by these same two bel canto and bravura composers, should be treated more as arias than songs. True, Flórez's vibrant voice kissed and melded with the notes of Bellini's lovely song “Ma rendi pur contento” (But only make happy), rendering the performance pleasing in spite of the insistent “push” in the voice. But Rossini's “L'esule” (Exile), from Morceaux réservés, suffered from a persistent forte that neither text nor music asked for, and on the high notes of “La patria mia ell'è” (It is my homeland), the loud dynamic of his singing almost entirely obliterated any sense of pitch.

Flórez's singing of “Principe più non sei” (You are prince no more) showed him to be a virile if somewhat laboring Prince Ramiro in Rossini's La Cenerentola, engaging the fioratura fireworks as an integral part of the music, character and dramatic situation rather than simply a showy spectacle. But his heroic Romeo in Bellini's aria “È serbato a questo acciaro” (It remains to this sword), from I Capuleti ed i Montecchi (The Capulets and the Montagues), verged on the stentorian, and his unremitting forte interfered with the flow of the cantilena.

It was Flórez's final offering on the program, “Ah, mes amis” (Oh, my friends) from Donizetti's La fille du régiment (Daughter of the Regiment), that revealed by comparison what had not quite worked with Bellini and Rossini. Here everything made a convincing package: lightness, fervor, fioratura, integrity of pitch, and what was probably a somewhat higher tessitura, which lay more comfortably in his voice. The musical character of the piece — heroic, jubilant, with as much passage work as one could desire — fit the tenor's style and temperament perfectly.

Flórez's sortie into the French repertoire, Gluck's “J'ai perdu mon Eurydice” (I have lost my Eurydice) from the French version of the Orpheus story, Orphée — which Gluck wrote for the renowned dramatic tenor of that age, Adolphe Nourrit (Gluck had written the first version, in Italian, for castrato) — was well served by Flórez's forthright declamation. But the touching line, “C'est ton époux, ton époux fidèle” (It is your husband, your faithful husband), lacked the ingratiating French legato that should offer a telling contrast to the preceding dramatic lines, “Eurydice . . . Réponds-moi!” (Eurydice . . . answer me!). A heavily ornamented aria, also from Orphée, “L'espoir renaît dans mon âme” (Hope is reborn in my breast), sounded nothing like Gluck, who liked his lines lean, but it provided Flórez with some of his best coloratura singing of the evening.

A group of Peruvian songs continued the pattern of the loud dynamic whether warranted or not, but Teodoro Valcarel's lovely lament, “Suray Surita,” was telling, thanks to Flórez's passionate commitment. The quirky, angular Spanish rhythms of this group kept pianist Martin Katz's nimble, powerful fingers busy.

Flórez happily graced the adoring audience with four encores: “Cessa di più resistere” from Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia, with fireworks a-plenty; the famous “Granada” by Augustin Lara; a repeat of the winning last stanza of “Ah, mes amis;” and an anonymous Peruvian folk song, “La flor de Canela.” Flórez at the end of his recital sounded as fresh as at the beginning, a testament, perhaps, to a secure, single-minded technique and the singer's glorious youth.