At 8:00 tonight, Andrea Bocelli will sing alone in the Duomo desert, Milan’s cathedral.



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When you go up on stage to sing, you are naked. The only thing that gives you a feeling of intimacy is your voice. That is why I am so scared every time I open my mouth. It doesn’t matter if I sing for a king or for the pope. While someone is standing there in front of me. I am suffering from exposure, but there is nothing I can do about it. “Tonight, Andrea Bocelli will not have an audience. But the fear will not be less. With him there will only be Emanuele Vianelli, who will” direct “the sound of the organ of the church, but in front of him will stand an entire country, his homeland. From the center of Milan’s cathedral to the heart of a dark area of ​​death, he will “pray” with aria and resurrection hymns, caressing a little sadness, recruiting Bach, Mozart and Mascani.

At 8 pm. (Greek period) will be located in the center of the Duomo, this huge and iconic Gothic temple, the largest in Italy. The impressive six-century-old building, which took nearly six centuries to complete its velvety voice, will cross the main side corridors, revolve around the characteristic columns and magnificent statues, and flow into the world, sending messages of love and hope (the concert will be broadcast live from the singer’s official YouTube channel.) He is the one who, on Easter Sunday, will try to convince Italians of something that has turned from adolescence to life: one can be victorious, even if faced with the hardest fate.

Tonight, Andrea Bocelli will not have an audience. Joining him alone will be Emanuele Vianelli, who will “direct” the sound of the church organ, but in front of him will stand an entire country, his homeland. From the center of Milan’s cathedral to the heart of a dark area of ​​death, he will “pray” with aria and resurrection hymns, stroking sadness a bit, recruiting Bach, Mozart and Mascani.

Defeat, pessimism, and futility are unfamiliar to him. “Read, listen to music, try to keep your body and mind very active, and finally, don’t be afraid of a virus passing, just as you are not afraid to drive, knowing that every year there are so many victims on the road” , he told me. The outbreak of the pandemic, which came a few hours ago to admit: “Let us all pray together, for Milan, for the planet that is facing a completely painful situation.”

Andrea Bocelli, of innumerable successes, awards, sales, appearances and generous philanthropy, was born on September 22, 1958 and grew up in a family that lived selling agricultural machinery and cultivating some vineyards in the Tuscany region. Doctors had advised his parents, Alessandro and Eddie Botselli, to abort, since they had predicted that the boy would be born with a disability. They refused and, from birth, it was obvious that Andrea had serious vision problems. Finally, he was diagnosed with congenital glaucoma, with which he lived for 12 years. At that age, during a soccer game in which Andreas was playing as a goalkeeper, a strong shot hit him in the face, causing his already sensitive eyes to blur. Doctors struggled with a hemorrhage that removed his sight from time to time, but his efforts were unsuccessful, leaving the little boy blind.

From that day on, the images became an incessant struggle with memory for him. Even today he admits that in his mind there are only so many works of art, landscapes, human features and events that the memory of a boy who was plunged into darkness in adolescence has managed to “immortalize”.

“To be honest, I don’t like to speak and explain in general. Singing is the only way I can fully express myself,” he says. “I feel that art is a coded and enigmatic language, but once deciphered, it is a much more deep and substantial than the colloquial. Anyone who has stood in front of Pieta by Michael Angelos feels an emotion that comes from very strong communication that has nothing to do with language. “

Andrea Bocelli

Andrea Bocelli

Before the world went dark for the charismatic boy, music colored his life. She started taking piano lessons at age six and soon added flute, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, guitar, and even drums to her children’s room. His babysitter Oriana was the one who, giving him an album by international melodrama star Franco Corelli, intrigued him to pursue a tenor career and convinced him that he could use his voice to describe what his eyesight was gradually depriving him of. A year and thousands of recordings of discs, then the little one could recognize with his ear the famous operatic voices of the time better than the details in the images.

“Some of us are born with a weakness for music. When I was a baby, music cured me of what I thought I had. If I was anxious, I would calm down. If I screamed, I would automatically stop crying. It was my cure. That’s why I always knew that my destiny was to sing. I just didn’t know if I would be successful. But I sang everywhere: at school, at parties, in church, with my parents’ guests. Usually, I was dissatisfied that everyone always asked me to sing for them, while I longed to play soccer with my friends. ”

He gave his first concert in a small neighboring town and received a strong dose of confidence at the age of 14, when he won first prize in a song contest, where he went to prepare “O sole mio”. In 1980, after graduating from high school, he studied law at the University of Pisa and at the same time played the piano bar. “I am incredibly competitive by nature. That is why it is not surprising that, before I became a singer, I was a lawyer,” he said, justifying his law degree at home along with photographic snapshots of a magnificent career.

Duomo Milan Cathedral

Duomo Milan Cathedral

In order to be 61 years old today, to be considered a crossover rock star, Bocelli had to pass many exams: he took voice lessons from the idol of Franco Corelli, in 1992 he wrote and sent a demo to Zucchero and finally managed to accompany him. During his pan-European tour, he sought a meeting with Pavarotti and eventually participated in his annual charity gala in Modena (1994), competed at the San Remo Festival, and sought out ideal partners to share a sentiment from one end of the planet to the other.

Bad lies, no matter how much I try to take the baton away from the beast of the Italian lyrical song, Luciano Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli has neither the displacement nor her talent, although the exuberant Luciano has spared no compliments. It’s clear that the operatic repertoire has never been seriously challenged, so the world of hardcore classics has never included it in their backyard. He is, however, the one who proved to be the best student in the crossover., the one who still manages to convey the illusion that classical music can belong to the stage, the one who convinces you that the sincere feeling is enough to express with the same power the drama of “Tosca”, “Andrea Senier”, “Carmen “,” Clowns “but also the pop eroticism of a duet with Celine Dion or Sarah Brightman.

A true Italian school boy who wants the scales to lean towards emotion, love, lust for women (two marriages and three children so far), soccer (fanatically supports Inter), good wine (how to give up to him) family inheritance;), love for the motherland and roots and with a clear weakness in Puccini. “I was born and raised in Italy, overwhelmed by the Italian mindset and culture,” he says.

How does the tenor interpret faith in the homeland? In the old-fashioned, familiar way of recycling and shaking up stereotypes – he enjoys the apotheosis inside the walls more than anywhere else, he exhausts his generosity when it comes to offering something to his compatriots (like the Teatro del Silenzio outdoor theater). , where he appears uninterrupted), locked in his sanctuary in Tuscany, even if he has homes all over the world (“I don’t like to travel. I live in the most beautiful place in the world. I like to stay at home, doing the same things. But fate decided otherwise “”, he opposes those who promote Italians as “macho” (“Macho” actually means stupid and a true Italian is smart and elegant. He is not at all male, “he says), he has minus a photo on the wall of each house with Papa

In the hours of his own contemplation, he is enchanted by the immensity of Immanuel Kant’s thought, he identifies with Schopenhauer when he says that men can be burned by love, no matter how intelligent or cultured they are, he writes books, some of which Available at Bragg, he sits at his favorite piano, where the names of his three sons, Amos, Matteo and Virginia, are recorded, and he sings his favorite “Nessun dorma” from “Turandot”, telling stories about his favorite objects. as a southern boxing couple by signing their friend and idol, Muhammad Ali, who dominate the interior, in a display case.

“I admired him from a young age. I would get up in the middle of the night to see his fights. To me, he was a symbol and model of a human being, an athlete, a human rights activist. The night he gave me the gloves , I was singing in Phoenix. When I went up on stage, I announced that a very important person was sitting somewhere in the audience. He, first of all, enjoyed the audience that, standing up, adored him. Of course he had gloves on the locker rooms. To honor it, in the last song I used them. “

But none of that will be necessary tonight. Finally, tonight, in Duomo, Bocelli will feel naked. A lone monk in the huge temple, on Easter day for Catholics, will use his voice to convince that life will conquer death, light will prevail in battle with darkness. After all, how many and how many times in the past have they not persisted: “Be optimistic, don’t lose hope because it only illuminates our lives.” And if nothing else, you know as little as you can really brighten a life.

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