Accustomed to leaping over apparently insurmountable obstacles, the Tuscan tenor extended his repertoire (not disdaining an occasional carefully measured venture into melodic cross-over territory). Bocelli sang Werther which was released onto the market in spring. The following year his 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. His more recent projects include the demanding role of Andrea Chénier by Giordano and finally the most audacious and bewitching love story of all time, Bizet’s Carmen, directed by Myung Whun Chung. For his concerts Bocelli conquered the most lauded strongholds of the classical music world such as the Wiener Staatsoper. In 2008, while his new album Incanto was a sell-out success, Andrea performed in Carmen at the Rome Opera, followed by Puccini’s Messa di Gloria in Padova, and then La Petite Messe Solennelle in the United States, directed by Placido Domingo. He appeared as Turiddu in the Cavalleria Rusticana on the prestigious stage of the Deutsche Opera in Berlin and then flew to South America where he performed to an audience of more than 110,000 in San Paolo, Brazil.