Andrea Bocelli at the Kia ForumThe great tenor Andrea Bocelli performed at the KIA Forum in Inglewood, CA. Sunday night (12/8) along with his wife Veronica Berti, daughter Virginia, wife and a few very special guest performers. This was a show of not only Bocelli’s incredible music, but also a few Christmas classics, legendary opera compositions, and covers. In the entire 20th and 21st century, few singers have been globally known like Bocelli. Bocelli, now 66, still has a perfect voice. Earlier this year, Bocelli celebrated his 30 years in music with an all star celebration including Ed Sheeran, David Foster, Christian Nodal, Brian May, Lang Lang, Jon Batiste, and many more.  Bocelli is known as one of the greatest singers globally of any genre, however he’s quite a comedian as well, always making the audience laugh. 

Bocelli has been awarded a Guinness World Record for his album Sacred Arias for simultaneously holding the top three spots on the U.S. Classical Albums chart, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and is a seven time World Music Award winner. Outside of music Bocelli has earned a law degree. Bocelli can sing in English, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin. Bocelli also had the best selling Classical album by a solo artist of all time with Sacred Arias. In 2020 Bocelli released his latest album Believe including covers of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” and “Amazing Grace,” with Allison Krauss.

This 2+ hour show featured Bocelli with a full orchestra and choir totalling around 80 members. The show began with the classic “La donna e mobile” (Giuseppe Verdi) a song everyone knows and was famously performed by Luciano Pavoratti in he 1987 film adaption of Rigoletto and parodied by Adam Sandler as Opera Man in Saturday Night Live. The Christmas classics came during the second of the show starting with “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and later “Silver Bells” and “Silent Night.” Bocelli regulars Pia Toscano and Zucchero both performed as well as Il Volo, Edward Parks, Cadie J. Bryan, legendary producer David Foster whose recent 75th birthday celebration at the Hollywood Bowl included Bocelli, Toscano, and Jennifer Hudson who was a guest as well for this Bocelli show.  If there was one song that left the audience in tears it was the incredible “Time To Say Goodbye (Con Te Partiro).” This was the second to last song and Bocelli’s most famous one. This was followed by none other than the grand finale, “Nessun Dorna” from Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot which Luciano Pavarotti sang at the 1990 FIFA World Cup bringing it to a global audience, and has been covered numerous times including versions by Jeff Beck, Chris Botti, Jennifer Hudson and is part of Billy Joel’s shows before “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.”If there is any artist to see today that’ll blow anyone away, it’s Andrea Bocelli. The show left the crowd in awe and stunned.The post Andrea Bocelli at the Kia Forum first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.