Advertisement

Andrea Bocelli interview: ‘You can learn a lot from a woman like the Queen’

Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli - Camera Press/Barbara Ledda/Photomovie
Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli - Camera Press/Barbara Ledda/Photomovie

For a man who has sold 80 million records and performed in front of presidents and popes, it’s surprising to learn that Andrea Bocelli still gets nervous. But when the Italian tenor takes the stage tomorrow at the televised concert outside Buckingham Palace to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, he will feel a very particular kind of pressure.

“At concerts where I will only perform one piece that will appear on millions of TV screens, it’s like kicking a penalty, you know? The last penalty. It is psychologically difficult,” the 63-year-old tells me over Zoom from his home recording studio in Forte dei Marmi, Tuscany, prior to departing for London.

He won’t name the piece he’s performing at the Platinum Party at the Palace, beyond saying it’s “one of the most popular and loved songs in the world” and that he’ll be backed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. I take a shot myself at this operatic open goal. Nessun Dorma? A smile. “You guess very well,” he says via an interpreter.

Singing Puccini for the Queenie. Being Italian, the significance of the concert might be lost on Bocelli, who grew up on a farm south of Pisa. But Bocelli has met the Queen on numerous occasions, including when he sang at her 90th birthday celebration in Windsor in 2016.

He says he’s seen first-hand the affection that the UK has for its Queen, whom he calls “courageous and brave”. We can learn from her service. “From a woman so experienced who has led a country for so many years – and a country with an ancient history – you can always learn something,” he says. She has also set an example in how she’s handled the trickier, darker moments. “She is a woman who over the decades has also known moments of pain [and] of sorrow or problems in her family, and all these things together have made her a strong woman from whom you can learn a lot.”

Andrea Bocelli with his family
Andrea Bocelli with his family

Pain and sorrow have entered Bocelli’s life in recent days. On Saturday, he announced that his mother, Edi Aringhieri Bocelli, had died. She was nearly 85. It’s still incredibly raw and I check if he’s alright with me asking about her. He nods. How will he and his family remember Edi? “My mum was an extraordinary, brave, hard-working, hyperactive and generous woman until unfortunately several conditions transformed her,” he says, without elaborating on those conditions. “I would like to remember her when she was really her – not when she was hit by the conditions.” They were close – “like all children to their mothers” – and her funeral was held on Sunday.

Given what has happened, I wonder whether there will be added poignancy tomorrow in honouring a strong matriarch’s life and hard work. “Probably, yes,” says Bocelli, who is married to Italian actress Veronica Berti, with whom he has a daughter. “However in their lives they were totally different people. My mother belonged to a very middle-class family, she lived in the countryside, whereas the Queen has a very different life.”

Bocelli has form in carrying on in the face of family loss. In 2000, just hours after the death of his father Sandro, he sang for Pope John Paul II after his mother encouraged him to honour his commitments.

Bocelli looks very unstarry dressed in a burgundy T-shirt and black aviator shades, so it’s easy to forget just how famous he is. Since 1994, he has recorded 17 wildly successful studio albums. His 1999 LP, Sacred Arias, is the biggest- selling classical album by any solo artist in history. He has performed for three Popes as well as Presidents Clinton, Obama and Biden (he was reportedly due to sing at Trump’s inauguration but withdrew after an online backlash, although Trump’s side claimed they turned down his offer).

Bocelli performs at the Duomo in Milan on Easter Sunday, 2020 - Claudio Furlan/La Presse/AP
Bocelli performs at the Duomo in Milan on Easter Sunday, 2020 - Claudio Furlan/La Presse/AP

It’s equally easy to overlook something else: Bocelli’s disability. He was born with sight problems before being diagnosed with congenital glaucoma. He lost his sight completely aged 12 when he was hit in the eye with a football. Doctors battled to save his sight, even applying blood-sucking leeches, but were unable to. He found solace in music, entering and winning singing competitions. He worked briefly as a lawyer before sending a tape to Italian rock star Zucchero in 1992. It changed his life.

Zucchero had asked tenors to audition to appear on a demo version of a song he was writing for Luciano Pavarotti. When Pavarotti heard Bocelli’s voice, he ended up recording the song with him. Patronage from Zucchero and Pavarotti put Bocelli on the map.

Bocelli believes music has therapeutic qualities. He’s not alone: a live stream of him singing in Milan’s empty Duomo on Easter Day 2020, at the height of the pandemic, was watched by more than 28 million people within 24 hours. You can see why. Bocelli’s powerful voice is infused with a restorative purr. But he warns that music can also be “abused”. Too often, he argues, you hear it everywhere – in restaurants, in lifts, in bed – and its power is diluted. He’s talking about Muzak. “For instance, when you walk into a restaurant you can hear music but you should instead concentrate on what you’re doing in the restaurant. It’s more a distraction.

“Music is food for the soul. If you eat when you’re hungry, that’s OK. But if you eat when you’re already full that’s when you’re going to get indigestion. You can’t live without food but if you eat when you’re already full, it’s terrible. It’s dangerous,” he says.

He’s hoping that British audiences will be hungry come September when a massive tour is planned. Dates include two nights at London’s O2 (he’s also playing a stadium in Inverness next month). It speaks volumes about his status that his chosen arenas are almost exactly the same as those currently being performed in by pop star Billie Eilish. Is opera now fully embraced as a form of pop? It’s not a distinction Bocelli sees. After all, “pop” simply stands for “popular”.

He will “try” to invite his son Matteo (the second of his two children with first wife, Enrica Cenzatti), a rising star in the classical crossover world, on the road with him but he’s busy studying music at the Lucca Conservatory. Two weeks ago, father and son performed together at the Portofino wedding of reality TV star Kourtney Kardashian and Blink-182 musician Travis Barker. Bocelli says it was a “very beautiful party”. At one point, Kourtney’s sister Kim posted a clip of the Bocellis singing to her 314 million Instagram followers.

He seems both impressed and flummoxed. “Basically, I am curious about her [Kim] as a character. I have never wanted to be an influencer myself because the main purpose in my life was exactly not to be influenced” – there’s that singlemindedness again – “so the fact that an influencer like her has influenced so many people is really curious to me.”

With the jubilee in mind, I suggest that the Kardashians are, in fact, a very different, very modern kind of royal family in their own right. “Absolutely!” he agrees. “That’s the beauty of the world. Everybody’s different.”


Andrea Bocelli performs at the Platinum Party at the Palace at 7.30pm on BBC One tomorrow. 

He has a standalone show on July 1 in Inverness, and his UK and Ireland tour will run throughout September and October. All tickets: andreabocelli.com