In some respects, Michael Fabiano was famous before he was famous. In 2009 he appeared in Susan Froemke’s feature documentary film The Audition, which followed the progress of participants in the Metropolitan Opera’s 2007 National Council Auditions. It wasn’t a film that did him many favours, revealing a pent-up young man driven by fierce ambition. Even on PBS’s website about the film, the American tenor is referred to as ‘a fiery 22-year-old grappling with his inner demons’. The film ends as Fabiano is announced as one of the six winners – cue much fist-clenching – and he has gone on, like his colleagues Jamie Barton, Angela Meade and Amber Wagner, to perform at the Met.

He now releases his first album, a disc of Donizetti and Verdi arias on Pentatone which would seem to be an ideal fit for his voice. It’s the sort of repertoire that José Carreras sang early in his career and, at his best, Fabiano is able to replicate the Spanish tenor’s honeyed tone. However, these moments are far too rare in an album where Fabiano slams the accelerator hard in a turbocharged approach that borders on the obsessive. In ‘Fu macchiato l’onor mio’ from Donizetti’s Poliuto, I was reminded of Fabiano’s performance of the title-role at Glyndebourne in 2015, when the tenor attempted to out-Corelli Franco Corelli, pushing his voice loudly in an acoustic that just doesn’t require it. There’s that same volatile tension here. Did he learn nothing from that experience? Top notes are often forced so hard that they become ugly.

I have heard Fabiano on more restrained form. He made a thrilling sound as Corrado in Verdi’s Il corsaro in Valencia last year and his handling of the aria ‘Tutto parea sorridere’ here is some of the best singing on the disc, but come the cabaletta, he’s far too aggressive. In a series of online video clips to explain his repertoire choices, Fabiano identifies with some of the characters, but comments such as ‘I like to fight for people I care about’ sound more like he’s planning a move into politics.

There are some interesting choices here, though, such as the original St Petersburg aria for Don Alvaro in La forza del destino, ‘Qual sangue sparsi’. But sung at a relentless forte, it’s not an easy listen. Then there’s Ernani. Verdi, at the behest of Rossini, wrote an insertion aria ‘Odi il voto’ for the tenor Nicola Ivanov, singing the role of Ernani in Parma in 1844. It is followed by a rabble rousing cabaletta which is clearly a precursor of Manrico’s ‘Di quella pira’ in Il trovatore.

Fabiano has worked with Enrique Mazzola before and the Italian conductor and the London Philharmonic Orchestra support him as sensitively as the singer allows.