I started as a lyrical singer. But it was through the pop universe that I reached international fame.
I don't like being called 'macho.' Macho basically means stupid and a real Italian man is not macho, he's smart. That's smart in both senses: elegant and clever.
I know that my passion is for opera, but sometimes I like also to sing songs, because there are many beautiful melodies.
I live for my children, so my number one rule is I won't go away from home for more than two weeks.
People wonder if there is a relationship between my lack of sight and the way I sing. But there's no connection.
An opera singer is like an athlete before a match. An athlete cannot overdo anything. In order to perform at the highest possible level, you need to refrain from activities so as to be able to express this power.
My real passion is for opera. It was born and developed by listening to records, and my dream as a child was to record entire operas when I grew up, and this dream came true.
I change the language with which I use my voice. In opera, I know I have an orchestra behind me; I have to communicate to people very far from me.
The nature of music is mysterious and so much so that it generates strong emotions within us. It moves along passages that reach the most intimate areas of our psyche without being tried by prejudices or influences of any kind.
Destiny has a lot to do with it, but so do you. You have to persevere, you have to insist.
When a little more than a teenager, I was a piano-bar pianist in the land where I was born and raised, Tuscany.
Probably the first time I left Italy was to travel by train to Lourdes. I went with my mother and my grandmother - who was a very religious person - so it was a pilgrimage of sorts. I remember it as a very intense, but beautiful experience.
I have always tried to perform the music I love, and I think I am lucky because my preferences are often the ones of the public.
Music is a prerogative of those who are willing to spend time to study it, understand and love it, well aware of the fact that one life is not enough to improve just one single note of what has already been written and performed.
It is the uninvolved parent who has to resort to strictness.
When the mood takes me, I like to be a man of action. I like to windsurf and ski, and most of all I love to ride horses. The wilder and faster the better!
I like very much to ride horses. I like soccer, I have had a passion for boxing since I was a child, although it would be stupid for me to box.
Opera is complex for those who perform it, but also for those who listen to it. It takes more time, more patience and more spirit of sacrifice. All this is well worth it because opera offers such deep sensations that they will remain in a heart for a lifetime.
Listen to what others tell you about your voice. If you're only singing to please yourself, you might as well just sing under the shower. But if you're singing for others, you are reliant on them to ask you to sing.
The activity of a singer that sings opera is similar to that of an athlete.
