Fifteen months ago and, as now, with a new CD to sell, Joseph Calleja gave a similar recital to this in the same hall with the same orchestra and the same conductor. Back then, the mix of opera and lighter song felt a hit-and-miss affair – fabulous vocal quality but short on artistic ambition and direct emotion. This time, though, it was hard not to be carried along by the likable Maltese tenor's engaging personality, ringing tone and general excellence in his chosen repertoire, in which he has no obvious peer.

Calleja started with Tchaikovsky's None but the Lonely Heart, a bit anonymous but revealing a darker chest voice than one associates with him – an exciting prospect for future more dramatic repertoire, one hopes. Familiar arias from Rigoletto and Tosca were dispatched with considerable effect and to huge acclaim, while Macduff's aria from Macbeth showed Calleja's potential in late Verdi. Andrew Greenwood and the Royal Philharmonic were on good form, too, giving lively and idiomatic accounts of orchestral fillers while Calleja took off-stage breathers.

But it was when Calleja reached the French operatic repertoire that vocal resource and artistic accomplishment came together best. Ah! Lève-toi, soleil from Gounod's Roméo et Juliette revealed classic tenor expressiveness and line on a level of which few singers of any generation are capable, while Hoffmann's tavern song from the prologue to Offenbach's opera was realised with unusual finesse and depth, although accompanied by stock gestures.

Two arias by Cilea, from Adriana Lecouvreur and L'Arlesiana respectively, were the high points of the second half. Each, particularly the lament from L'Arlesiana, showed how tastefully Calleja can control moments that lesser tenors may be tempted to grab at too readily. Both made one wish he had included more of this repertoire in the recital, rather than the Mediterranean ballads which do not extend him so much. Calleja is capable of even greater things.