Among today’s classical musicians, the Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez isn’t quite the equivalent of a rock star (like, say, Ma or Perlman), but he’s getting there. His first three albums for Decca have been widely acclaimed, and he’s becoming an increasingly common presence in the world’s top opera houses.

Judging by his concert on Sunday at Finney Chapel, his fame is well deserved. His voice isn’t particularly large or powerful, but it’s smooth, even and agile, which makes it well suited to Mozart and, especially, Rossini. (As an exponent of the latter composer, no other tenor today can surpass him).

The first half of Sunday’s program was devoted entirely to these two composers. Flórez began with the “portrait” aria (Dies bildnis ist bezaubernd schön) from Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.”

The basic tempo that he and his accompanist, Vincenzo Scalera (whose accompaniments throughout the concert were tasteful and unostentatious, but imaginative), adopted was broad and expansive, allowing the audience full time to bask in the glory of this amazingly beautiful aria.

Their reading was fairly generous with rubato, but nothing sounded mannered or forced.  Flórez’s singing here was ardent in an unaffected, direct way and beautifully phrased; it’s possible to prefer a slightly more full-bodied lyric tenor in this aria, but he could hardly be faulted on his own terms. 

Next was Si spande al sole in faccia from “Il ré pastore” (also by Mozart), which was the first item on the program that played to Flórez’s greatest strength: his total command of virtuosic coloratura.  Though the demands of this aria were modest in comparison with what came later (the first half of the concert seemed to be programmed so that the most virtuosic stuff came last), the airy ease with which he dispatched them was exhilarating. 

The last Mozart item on the program was the famously difficult Il mio tesoro from “Don Giovanni.”  Here, as before, everything was well phrased and ardently sung, but I got the sense that Flórez had trouble relaxing into the aria and letting it expand; impressively, he managed the series of runs in the middle of the aria in a single breath, but it seemed as if he had to rush the music a little in order to accomplish this.

The remainder of the first half was all Rossini, and it was here that Flórez truly came into his element. He began with a song, L’esule, which sounded as if it might have been a lyrical cavatina from one of the operas; Flórez sung it with the same grace and lyricism that he bestowed on the Mozart arias. 

The two arias that followed, however — Intesi, al tutto intesi, from “Il Turco” in Italian, and Deh troncate, from “Elisabetta, Regina D’Inghilterra” — received the most memorable performances of the concert. Neither of these arias is well known, presumably because their extreme difficulty discourages most tenors from programming them. But if any tenor is equipped to handle them, it is Flórez, who tore through their elaborate runs and exposed the top notes with apparent ease. 

His articulation was flawless (no aspirates), and even the most difficult runs were carefully, musically phrased. The fact that Flórez’s entire body gyrated while he churned out the runs in Deh troncate was instructive; it showed what a massive workout singing really is.

The second half of the concert was more of a hodgepodge, touching on early Twentieth Century Peruvian music and French song, and concluding with another bel canto aria. Flórez opened with three songs by the Peruvian composer Rosa Mercedes Ayarza de Morales (1881-1969).

These songs had a light, folky quality and were basically slight, but their unpretentious, accessible melodies were very hard to resist (the third, “Hasta la guitarra llora,” was particularly beautiful), and there wasn’t a trace of condescension in Flórez’s performance. 

If anything, his phrasing here was even more imaginative than it was in the first half of the concert — it was easy to tell that this music was close to his heart.

Three French songs followed. The first, Fauré’s lovely “Après un rêve,” was a beautiful performance, but also a slightly jarring one, if only because Flórez didn’t attempt the specific underlining of the lieder singer that one really expects in this music. 

Nevertheless, he gave a passionate, involving reading, and the following two songs (by Massenet and Bizet) were more operatic in style, and thus more naturally suited to Flórez.

It was back to bel canto (Flórez’s home turf) for the final aria, Linda di ritirò, from Donizetti’s “Linda di Chamounix.” Surprisingly, this final number was comparatively short on vocal fireworks (which isn’t to imply that it sounded easy—it didn’t).  However, more than any other item on the program, this one showed off the beauty (as opposed to the agility) of Flórez’s voice. He produced a smooth legato line, and his high notes were wonderfully round and solid. 

The audience got their fireworks, though, with the encores—Ah! mes amis, with its treacherous series of high C’s, and the inevitable La donna è mobile.

With these arias, Flórez got to end things the way every tenor loves to: by holding on to a high note as long as humanly possible.