Quoting Christopher Webber <[log in to unmask]>:

>"Certainly"??  All I can say is that Bocelli's complete recording of
>Rudolfo (La Boheme) seemed to me quite excellent - an opinion incidentally
>shared by Gramophone's reviewer John Steane, who knows a thing or two.

It's Ro-dolfo to begin with.  And it's worthless to banter opinions about
one performance or another, since it's a matter of taste really.  Let
me just say that Mr. Bocelli struggled with everything above the staff
in that recording, and his instrument is nowhere near big enough to be
handling this kind of repertoire.  His Verdi Requiem performance was
horrid.

>I'd never heard Bocelli before, didn't know anything much about him, and
>found his light but supple and mellifluous tenor gave considerable
>pleasure to this listener at least.

I'm glad you enjoyed it. I thought it was horrid.

>He used what he has intelligently and with taste, and is indeed in a
>different league to Ms Church.  I wouldn't be too keen to hear her as
>Mimi - or indeed in anything much beyond the greasy salon ballads and
>pious hymns she has made all her own.

Taste?  Intelligence?  Hardly.  He pushes his voice horribly and has
some of the worst technique in the business.  I am a professional singer,
so I can say that with some authority.  He's ok as a pop singer, but
he's dreadful in the verismo repertoire, which is what he is always
trying to sing.  He simply hasn't the voice size or the technique to
handle it.  Sorry.


Kevin Sutton