Written by: Giorgio De Martino (2008)
Translation by: Consuelo Hackney

 

At last, a legend for the new millennium. A legend in the Homeric sense of a myth, the“word that speaks” which has flowered here through song: pure enchantment and sensational power, like Caruso, Gigli, Del Monaco, Corelli…
A legend (of Andrea Bocelli’s stature) is not created by design: the most astute marketing would never be able to produce such a result. It is simply that people “recognize” him and he has a following in the most far flung parts of the world (and so for the artist the greatest adventure begins: bearing the responsibility for those millions of souls who ask to identify themselves in his voice, to unlock and interpret their deepest needs – first and foremost, the need for beauty.)
And so it happened, in an apparently equal context (a singing competition, a showcase of popular songs), and yet – with hindsight – the ideal, in fact the most perfect place: the infancy of a legend followed a careful course which went beyond imagination, broke traditions and created its own originality.
Bocelli sang at Sanremo and that excited universe which was concealed behind the mask of the bored television public recognized and voted for him. The tone of his voice brought tenderness to the world, his fame increased exponentially beyond the entire media circus. Because “if God would have a singing voice, He would sound a lot like Andrea Bocelli” (even Celine Dion’s famous comment is a clear, unadorned testament to the artist’s mythical status and the perception of a gift: that voice, that sensibility, that delivery, that simultaneously melancholy and radiant colour, unrivalled expression in song of the love of a lover or a father, a matchless expression of earthly desire or heavenly love.

• The responsibility of talent

”I don’t think one decides to become a singer, It is decided for you by the reactions of the people around you. Perhaps one should not say “listen to me, I want to sing for you”, but if people say “please sing for us” then…”. Andrea Bocelli had to reckon with a double gift, both elements of which are completely absorbing. The first aspect is the superb potential of his voice: a timbre which is as recognisable as a signature, quite unlike any other (as in the case of Callas, quite unmistakable and on hearing which it is impossible to remain unmoved), full and powerful, with a versatility ranging from the belcanto to the furore of verismo, from the sacred repertoire to the popular ballads.
Not to have developed, not to have nurtured such a rare talent, to bring it to bloom (through assiduous technical work and interpretative study) would – we believe - have been unpardonable for a man like Bocelli.
The second gift is even more delicate and complex than the miracle of the two vocal chords that seduce audiences all over the world: life’s journey led Andrea Bocelli in adolescence to a different ability which deprived him of sight. This was truly a privation which increased the flow of an extraordinary and unique sensibility.
(So here once again is the legend, so tangible and vivid: the one who cannot see has the most exceptional vision… You only need to remember “Homer’s” etymology: ? μη ?ρ?μ, “he who does not see”). Bocelli transforms his limitation: he excels in his interpretation of the lyrics, his perception of the subtleties of musical expression is sublime… The result is a “talent for presentation” which regularly breaks through all possible barriers of repertoire, whether linguistic or cultural. The result is also a professional approach which is driven by a voracious appetite for culture and a fierce self-criticism in the search for a level of perfection which can attain utopia.

• The empowerment of an unusual journey

Andrea Bocelli is an opera singer. A refined tenor (whose use of his voice combines the
unmistakable power of the heroic tone with the youthful fragrance of a graceful tenor fortified by an unusually polished timbre) who can sing anything from Verdi to Puccini, from Mascagni to Massenet; an artist who scrupulously studies the score (evident also by the way in which he does not emulate the great masters of the past: Bocelli brings his own interpretation, his own approach, to each role). He is a “complete” musician, as they used to say of those who had a solid background of study behind them, including the piano. Moreover he forged his own personality through the study of the humanities and a degree in Law. Paradoxically, at times it pays to restrict one’s breadth of interest, while instead eclecticism, intellectual curiosity, the absence of prejudice – in the colourful and diverse world of the opera-goer - are a source of diffidence and even of suspicion. Bocelli, the superb voice that the opera had been awaiting for years, “exploded” onto the world stage performing a song at the Sanremo festival. An anomalous route offering extraordinary possibilities: a real breath of fresh air in a world – that of the opera – which risked forgetting its own popular origins, so fiercely attached was it to its elitist and somewhat shaky pedestal. An anomaly which for millions represented a true motive for recognition (how many have been able to get closer to our great operatic heritage, thanks to the songs performed by Bocelli, a true bridge between “popular” and “classical” music) something which is not understood by one, albeit very small, corner of the world of musical criticism which is jointly responsible for the operatic autism which seriously prejudices the musical art form that represents the best Italy has been able to produce in the last four centuries. In honour of the truth, many, among the hesitant champions of preconceived ideas (representatives of the operatic cosmos which has always made a legend of a vocal past which we will never see again - it was already so in the eighteenth century, no doubt it will be repeated again in a hundred years time -) have gradually changed their minds… following Andrea Bocelli’s professional rise, the expansion of his exquisitely operatic repertoire, his theatrical and recording successes.
Andrea Bocelli has paid the price of this unusual career path: had he been “only” an opera singer, he would from the start have been carried along in the palm of the most demanding musical aristocracy. But his voice will not be held back by boundaries: it rings out all over the world in “Time to say goodbye”, while on stage it resonates in the operatic masterpieces. A genre which has found a regenerating thrust of unheard of power precisely as a result of the “Bocelli phenomenon”. Thanks to the tenor from Pisa, the spotlights of the media turn once again towards the opera and young audiences leave their prisons of prejudice and ignorance, discovering a rich mine of emotions in the teatro musicale. Such an ambassador for the opera, able to move audiences as wide as oceans, capable of launching a melodic “cross over” genre which today counts innumerable emulators, capable of developing an understanding of what is beautiful in vast sections of the population, also – like all true legends – generates a current of snobbish diffidence… albeit an ever decreasing one, with each day that passes.
Instead, alongside his worldwide fame, Andrea Bocelli’s awareness of the cultural and social function now held by his name increases: the legend is not an accompanying myth but an active force, the legend is a vital ingredient of human civilization.

• An old fashioned training of a modern tenor

… But we could equally say, “the modern training of an old fashioned tenor”.
Both of these definitions would describe the background and professional training of
Bocelli, the star, “a modern but old fashioned tenor” (as he likes to describe himself).
Modern but old fashioned as Puccini undoubtedly was, or Mascagni. And it is the same Tuscan landscape of Puccini and Mascagni that gave birth to Andrea Bocelli. He was born on 22nd September 1958 and grew up at the family farm in Lajatico, a very close-knit rural community nestling between the vines and olive groves in the province of Pisa (the farm still today produces excellent wine which is highly prized around the world.) His parent’s must receive the credit for having identified and encouraged young Andrea’s musical talent, allowing him to start studying the piano from the age of only six years old. Later his musical passion would extend to the flute and the saxophone. But it was in his voice that Andrea discovered the ideal instrument: the karmic line of his life became evident from the moment the magic of the voice struck the sensibility of the young musician…
In 1970 he enjoyed his first success in a singing competition: Andrea was not yet twelve years old when he won the Margherita d’Oro in Viareggio singing ‘O sole mio. After singing lessons with Maestro Luciano Bettarini (himself a legendary singing teacher with a striking list of illustrious pupils from Fedora Barbieri to Tagliavini, Corelli to Panerai and Bastianini), Bocelli approached Franco Corelli, an artist whom Andrea had always worshipped (his esteem was reciprocated over the years by the great singer from Ancona). In order to pay for singing lesson, Andrea would play the piano in the local bars and in the meantime he continued with his studies graduating in Law at the University of Pisa (a profession which he practiced for a year when he worked as a Public Defence Counsel).
Immediately after taking part in a singing master class held by Franco Corelli in Turin, Andrea Bocelli had an opportunity to make his debut on the operatic stage in Verdi’s Macbeth (in the role of Macduff directed by Claudio Desderi and touring Pisa, Mantova Lucca and Livorno – during the same period that saw him take off in the world of pop discovered by Caterina Caselli and her record label “Sugar”. That Christmas he was invited to sing the Adeste Fideles in the Sala Nervi in the Vatican before the Pope. While only the previous year, on 28th December, Andrea had made his debut in the world of classical music in a concert at the Teatro Romolo Valli in Reggio Emilia.
No more courtrooms or requests in piano bars: this was the start of a meteoric rise. Andrea Bocelli had found the stage: in fact the stage found Andrea Bocelli and would never leave him.

• Con te partirò...

There is something miraculous about the parallel track along which the tenor Andrea Bocelli’s career developed. In 1996 the melody of the song “Con te Partiro`” (and later its arrangement as a duet with Sarah Brightman with the title “Time to say Goodbye”) was heard in every corner of the world. The Bocelli phenomenon was being talked about everywhere: an artist whose explosion onto the recording world - with an album entitled Romanza – broke all records.
In Germany, for example, the duet remained at number one in the charts for fourteen consecutive weeks, selling more than three million copies and becoming the best selling single of all time.
At the same time Andrea embarked on his operatic course, measuring his repertoire according to a forward looking plan for the management of his voice which was both prudent and courageous.
It was Sardinia (in the adventurous theatre in Cagliari which in that period was making its name by presenting intriguing and at times eccentric productions of high quality which attracted great media interest) that hosted Andrea Bocelli’s first entirely operatic concerts. Followed by Torre del Lago Puccini, where in the summer of 1997 the tenor performed parts of Madame Butterfly and Tosca, and also the “aria dei 9 do” from La fille du regiment to a resounding ovation.
In 1998 came a new debut, another important milestone in the development of the artist’s vocal and stage career. This time Andrea played the leading role, Rodolfo, alongside Daniela Dessi, in Puccini’s La Bohème on stage in Cagliari, directed by Steven Mercurio. That same year he met M. Zubin Mehta and this led to a first collaboration between them for an important concert in Tel Aviv. The celebrated orchestra conductor was enthusiastic about Bocelli’s talents and declared his views several times in public, extolling the Tuscan tenor’s musicality, his solid preparation and his musical refinement.
In 1999 Andrea performed at the Arena in Verona for the first time (as a guest at the Gala in Léhar’s Merry Widow directed by Anton Guadagno). Here he was applauded by an audience of eighteen thousand after his c flat top note in “Tu che m'hai preso il cuor” and the Brindisi from the Traviata with Cecilia Gasdia. In October, he made his debut in the United States in Massenet’s Werther, on stage in Detroit, directed by Steven Mercurio and with Denyce Graves in the role of Charlotte. 1999 was also the year in which Andrea received the nomination of “Best New Artist” at the Grammy Awards, becoming the first classical artist to receive this honour in thirty-eight years. This was the year in which the album Sogno was released, which included Andrea’s masterly interpretation in duet with
Céline Dion of “The Prayer”, which had already won the Golden Globe Award as Best Original Song and was subsequently nominated at the Oscars.
From this point on the Bocelli legend, supported by huge record sales, was unstoppable. His concerts would find the most celebrated directors on the podium such as Lorin Maazel (the classical tour in 1999, in Munich and Verdi’s Requiem in Verona in 2000 and in Munich in 2001), Seiji Ozawa (Munich in 2000), Valeri Gergev (Verdi’s Requiem recorded in London in 2000) and Zubin Mehta. Another important professional collaboration not to be overlooked brought Bocelli together with Myun Whun Chung, the Director of the Orchestra of the National Academy of S. Cecilia in Rome.
In January 2001, Andrea made his debut on the stage of the Filarmonico in Verona in Mascagni’s Amico Fritz, a role which was particularly well suited to Bocelli’s voice. On 28th October of the same year he went to New York upon the invitation of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani where he sang Schubert’s Ave Maria at “Ground Zero” before the world as part of the memorial to the victims of 9/11.
In the summer of 2002, Andrea made his debut in the role of Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly at Torre del Lago. Following further successful recordings and international awards (for example, in 2002 he received two World Music Awards in Monte Carlo: “World best selling classical artist” and “Best selling Italian artist”. He was also awarded the Luciano Cirri prize in Rome for his contribution to the spread of Italian culture throughout the world, and, for the same reason, he was awarded the Caruso prize in Sorrento in September. In October in London he received the National Music Award and in December the “Best of the World” prize at the American Music Awards). In 2004 Bocelli made his debut in the role of Cavaradossi in Tosca at the Festival of Torre del Lago Puccini. His operatic career continued unabated (he played the lead in Werther again at the Municipal Theatre in Bologna) and sang at many large concert venues. In the meantime his repertoire of classical recordings also continued to grow significantly. Because beyond the reverberations of his enormous success all over the world which by now had become a historic fact, the legend had pursued a careful path and it is striking how when the time is right – the artist in the fullness of his vocal power and interpretative skill –fixes, archives, stocks the shelves of time, leaving memory and testimony alive for those who will follow.

• The essential (is invisibile to the eye)

It is the whole of existence which is called into play in Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s brilliant maxim (from Le petit prince) which reminds us that “you can only see with your heart. The essential is invisible to the eye”. Bocelli, curious, passionately active and tenaciously positive about life, is deeply familiar with the secret of this literary reflection… a sentence which is unnerving in its dazzling and linear truth. The essential, in a tenor’s professional sphere, is, in this case too, invisible to the eye. It is through his discography under the signature of international record labels (Sugar Music under licence to Polydor, then Philips Classics and later Decca Music and Universal Music) that one measures the career of an artist. And in Bocelli’s case it is by his recordings that his voice can be guaranteed to be kept constantly up to the minute for generations to come. As Caruso did at the start of the last century, so Bocelli continues to do at the beginning of the millennium.
The first “classical” recording dates back to 1997 and was entitled Viaggio Italiano. It was a Caterina Caselli Sugar project undertaken with the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Vladimir Fedoseyev. The album booklet read as follows: the tenor Andrea Bocelli in a concert of well known operatic arias and classical songs, an imaginary journey through the mythical world of opera and the Italian operatic tradition, the only true cultural heritage of the great mass emigration to the United States. This record is an homage to the decisive role of the Italian emigration to North America in safeguarding and spreading the Italian musical tradition throughout the world. An homage and a cultural recognition for millions of émigrés who kept alive and spread throughout the New World one of the most important Italian cultural legacies: the opera, the melodrama, the Bel canto and, more in general, the melodic tradition and the Italian popular song (…)”. From Puccini to Schubert, from Verdi to Donizetti (Nessun Dorma, Ave Maria, La donna è mobile, Una furtiva lacrima and many others), with a pleasing list of masterfully performed classic Neapolitan songs. Notwithstanding all of this, M° Bocelli’s fierce self criticism adds a note: «I extend my heartfelt apologies to all Neapolitans for my accent, but – given the love I have for their language– I hope I will be forgiven. I hope to improve my pronunciation very soon. Fondly yours,”
1998 saw the release of Aria – The Opera Album, with the Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino directed by Gianandrea Noseda. Bocelli’s voice extended its potential in seventeen stunning arias from the operatic repertoire. On the eve of the new millennium, he released a cd entirely dedicated to Sacred Arias with the Orchestra and Choir of the National Academy of Saint Cecilia directed by Myung-Whun Chung (recorded in 1999). Pages “composed to extol the greatness of God and celebrate His Glory” wrote Bocelli, about an album which was “profoundly desired and wanted”. The spiritual strength of the pieces was exhalted by Bocelli’s unique voice.
“A song is not fine song (bel canto) if it does not create enchantment” the Tuscan tenor will say many years later with his typical intense simplicity, during a television interview. His recorded homage to Christianity remains one of his most luminous and vibrant artistic productions. Sacred Arias became the best selling classical album ever released by a solo artist. Bocelli earned a place in the Guiness Book of World Records occupying the first, second and third place in the American classical music charts and holding onto the top positions week after week for almost three and a half years.

• A voice for the new millennium

The year 2000 marked a new milestone in Andrea Bocelli’s recording career: Puccini’s La Bohème, with the outstanding conductor, Zubin Mehta, directing the Israel Philarmonic Orchestra. Barbara Frittoli played the role of Mimì. Andrea had already played the role of Rodolfo in 1998 (in Cagliari) prompting praise from his teacher, Franco Corelli, who commented: “Andrea is an operatic tenor with a voice of rare beauty. His sense of romance and melody goes beyond the very essence of Rodolfo the bohemian”.
It is “music of feelings, passions and tears” as Andrea said himself, finding in Rodolfo a passionate young man who could be like so many boys today… At the end of the recording, that giant of interpretation, Zubin Mehta, expressed himself as follows on Andrea’s innate musicality: “He manages to capture my internal rhythm. With every phrase I execute, he barely has to perceive what I am doing and he is already following me.”
Still under the baton of M° Mehta, the start of the millennium also celebrated the release of the Verdi album, (this time with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Chorus and the Israel Philarmonic Orchestra) in which Bocelli confronted some of the most famous arias of Verdi’s masterpieces, from Di quella pira from Il Trovatore to La donna è mobile from Rigoletto, from Ma se m’è forza perderti from Un ballo in maschera to Quando le sere al placido from Luisa Miller. In 2001 it was the turn of Verdi’s Requiem, a recording with a formidable cast, starting from the conductor Valere Gergiev. Singing with Bocelli, were Renée Fleming, Olga Borodina and Ildebrando D’arcangelo.In the autumn of 2002 Andrea Bocelli combined his energies with those of another great conductor: M.° Lorin Maazel, with whom he undertook a very special recording project: Sentimento, a collection of romantic pieces by composers such as Tosti, Liszt, Denza and Gastaldon, arranged for the orchestra by M° Maazel, who also demonstrated his refined musical talents as a concert violinist, accompanying Bocelli’s voice.
The project was an enormous success earning Andrea a double nomination at the 2003 “Classical Brit Awards”, where he won both “Album of the Year” and “Best Selling Classical Album of the Year”.
Andrea Bocelli, “Stradivarius” of song. The following are the words of Lorin Maazel - “
Andrea’s voice has a special quality and perhaps the violin that I play, an antique Stradivarius, with its deep and sensual sonority, is particularly well suited to this repertoire. In my view, the combination of the two voices, that of the violin that I have the pleasure to play and that of Andrea’s natural instrument, create an extraordinary interaction…which is very lively, intense and passionate”.
In May 2003 Andrea Bocelli’s album of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca was released, the second complete work recorded under the direction of Zubin Mehta. Fiorenza Cedolins sang the role of Floria Tosca and these were her comments on the experience: “Andrea is a really extraordinary person. He struck me from the first for the clarity and spontaneity with which he approaches even the most delicate questions which most singers might tend to avoid. I refer to the extremely frank and sincere way in which he discusses vocal techniques, expressions and positioning.”
Talking about Bocelli’s vocal development Zubin Mehta highlighted how in the role of Cavaradossi in the “centres” the singer had found a sonority which was “almost baritone”, while his high notes became much more full”. In spring 2004 Bocelli released Il Trovatore which had been recorded at the “Bellini” in Catania in 2001 under the direction of Steven Mercurio. Bocelli was accompanied by , Veronica Villarroel, Carlo Guelfi, Carlo Colombara.
The more recent goals have been even more exciting if that is possible. Real vocal challenges faced with the full interpretative power of an artist who has reached maturity. Like the Werther which has been on the market since spring 2005: this recording is a part of a series from the Teatro Comunale of Bologna (signed Liliana Cavana and Dante Ferretti) with Yves Abel conducting. A Werther which is far removed from any “melodramatic honeyed tones” as Andrea himself points out. The protagonist of Massenet’s masterpiece is characterized by a new, captivating humanity (much appreciated by the international critics). Andrea Bocelli, in excellent French, underlines the character’s psychological journey, from his jaunty initial bold passion to the subtle colours and vulnerability of the finale.
At the end of 2006 Andrea Bocelli’s repertoire of operatic recordings was enriched by two great landmarks of realism: Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci and Marcagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, both directed by Steven Mercurio.
Accustomed to leaping over apparently insurmountable obstacles, forged on the anvil of a different ability which becomes a superior ability, Andrea Bocelli broadens his repertoire through constantly new challenges, never disdaining his parallel interest, in correct and careful measure, in melodic cross-over pop ballads. Among the most recent opera projects which will soon be heard around the world, is the demanding role of Andrea Chénier, in the masterpiece of the same name by Umberto Giordano (accompanied by Carlos Álvarez and Violetta Urmana), and finally the most audatious and bewitching love story in the whole of the operatic history, Bizet’s Carmen, directed by Myung Whun Chung.
“The more I immerse myself in singing the less I understand, I only know that God has given me a voice which allows me to express what I feel, and in this sense I believe I can describe it as a recognizable voice”… The true greatness of an artist is measured also by his humility, in spite of the world fame and awareness of the cultural and social function which his name represents. Finally we have a legend who is worthy of the cumbersome title. Finally we have a voice for the new millennium.