For more than three decades, Andrea Bocelli has carried opera out of gilded theaters and into stadiums, wedding aisles, and living rooms across the world. His voice, instantly recognizable and endlessly emotive, has become shorthand for romance, faith, and vulnerability. But for Bocelli, the success that shaped him into a global figure was never part of the plan.
“If I had followed only my natural inclinations, I might have been perfectly content, possibly without ever leaving home to soar instead on the wings of a musical score, an operatic aria or a poem.” Instead, the life placed before him led somewhere far larger. Today, he describes himself as an honorary citizen of the world, a man whose gift has taken him across centuries of music and continents of culture.
