The New York Times, January 2005

Current United States Postal Service regulations are stern: "No living person shall be honored by portrayal on U.S. postage." In Italy, Verdi—whose life unfolded in seemingly fated synchronicity with his country's Risorgimento, or national unity movement—did not rate a stamp until 1951, half a century after his death.

So how did the tenor Juan Diego Flórez, whose international career is not even a decade old, end up on a Peruvian postage stamp at the barely ripe age of 31?

"When the authorities first proposed it to me, I thought that it wouldn't crystallize," Mr. Flórez, a native of Lima and a celebrated Rossini specialist, said by car phone from Italy. "But it happened. People are sending me letters with my face on them." His delight would smack of a tenor's proverbial peacock vanity if not for the boyish incredulity in his voice.

Serpost (Servicios Postales del Perú) has issued five stamps honoring contemporary Peruvian musicians: in addition to Mr. Flórez, the Afro-Peruvian divas Susana Baca and Eva Ayllón, the rock band Libido and the singer and songwriter Gian Marco.

According to the philatelist Paul den Ouden, the Web master of Operastamps.org, Mr. Flórez is not the first living operatic artist to appear on a stamp. "However," Mr. den Ouden said, "this is the first stamp I know of depicting an opera singer issued so early in his career."

Mr. Flórez tried to explain the honor, alluding to political instability and drug trafficking in his country: "Peru is very proud of me, and that doesn't always happen. What's the saying: 'No one is a prophet in his own land'? Peru has many bad aspects going on. That someone puts the country's name in a good light means a lot to Peruvians."

The wind whizzing outside his car window, Mr. Flórez was on his way to New Year's festivities with family and friends in "Bologna Grassa"—Fat Bologna, so called because of its rich cuisine. When asked whether, like many opera singers, he avoided alcohol, he shot back with shocked indignation, "Of course I drink wine, especially good ones."

Mr. Flórez celebrates his 32nd birthday on Thursday with his first opera at the Teatro Real in Madrid: Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia, whose impetuous Count Almaviva he portrayed to acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera in 2002 and 2003. The role is physically and vocally exhausting, chock-full of horseplay and capped with an eight-minute, lavishly ornamented aria ("Cessa di più resistere").

Still, Mr. Flórez seemed unfazed. "I sing a lot in Vienna, where you can have one rehearsal, and then you're onstage," he said. "Besides, this role is so much a part of me. It's no problem."

The bravado in his words is the kind born of a rock-solid, painstakingly polished technique, not of mere bluster. Looking forward to the year's challenges, he brought up not vocal fluff but the interpretive niceties of Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore, which he sings for the first time in Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands, in April. "Nemorino's 'Una furtiva lagrima' is difficult, not vocally but expression-wise," he said. "You have to touch people. That's the whole point."

Mr. Flórez's next Met role (in 2006) is also by Donizetti: Ernesto in Don Pasquale, which earned him glowing notices at Covent Garden in London last fall.

Wrapping up the old year, which kicked off with Rossini's L'italiana in Algeri at the Met, Mr. Flórez cited with relish his triumphant Moscow debut and two recitals before the icily discerning public of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. "They like to study you, and they started off applauding very weakly," he said. "But the way they ended… rushing to the stage to grasp my hands!" The newspaper Il Mattino compared Mr. Flórez to Tito Schipa, a supremely elegant tenor from the early 20th century who was revered in Naples.

"Since the death of Napoleon, another man has emerged who is talked about every day in Moscow and in Naples, in London and in Vienna," Stendhal wrote in his Life of Rossini. "The man's glory knows no limits but those of civilization, and he is not yet 32 years old." The quotation might apply as well to Mr. Flórez—if by "civilization" you mean today's dwindling operatic subculture.

Italy, incidentally, did not honor Rossini with a stamp until 1942. And Rossini withdrew from public life not long after Stendhal's encomium appeared. Here's hoping that Mr. Flórez bears his acclaim more lightly.