“They’re, like, opera singers, and they’re amazing” is how Ari’s teenage daughter summed up Il Volo on the series finale of HBO’s Entourage, and while that may seem an apt description, group member Gianluca Ginoble is quick to say that it’s not quite true.
“The Three Tenors sang opera, no?” he says over the phone in his charming Italian accent from his Vancouver hotel room, referring to the Spanish and Italian singers, a common comparison. “And we can’t sing opera. I don’t want to sing opera. We sing an operatic pop. We sing in harmony.”
In Italy, they don’t really love this kind of music. I don’t know why
Il Volo — Ginoble, 18, Ignazio Boschetto, also 18, Piero Barone, 20 — have a worldwide following for the operatic sensibility they bring to pop songs as well as for their beautiful harmonies on traditional Italian songs. The three met in 2009 on American Idol-esque Italian TV show Ti Lascio Una Canzone. Ginoble won the competition, but things went so well when producers asked the trio to sing O Sole Mio that the they formed Il Volo (Italian for “flight”).
The group just embarked on its North American tour, and will go “everywhere” before returning home to perform at Christmas.
“It is very important to come back to our country and show the people the new album,” Ginoble says. “In Italy, it is completely different. If Andrea Bocelli comes to the United States, he sings at the Hollywood Bowl. 20,000 people, no? But in Italy, he sings at a little theatre, 2,000 or 3,000 people. In Italy, they don’t really love this kind of music. I don’t know why.”
Ginoble may say operatic pop is more beloved in the United States, but Il Volo’s self-titled debut album went platinum when released in Italy in 2010. The group also debuted in the No. 10 spot on the Billboard Top 200 Chart in 2011.
If you’re new to the group, Ginoble sums up their sound: “We sing pop songs in a classical way and classical songs in a pop way,” he says. “It’s our — how can I say — our particular thing. And because we are young, our voices are not like –” He pauses here to do a pretty good imitation of an opera singer. “No. More fresh. I’m just 18.”
That fresh take means reinterpreting American pop songs, such as U2′s Beautiful Day and One Direction’s Little Things, on their May 2013 release, We Are Love (Special Edition).
Why Little Things? “To see if the young generation can get closer to this type of music,” Ginoble says. “It’s not our most beautiful song. It’s not so special. I don’t really like Little Things.”
If Ginoble loves to sing, he also loves using the word “beautiful.” Everything is beautiful, from Italian songs to their 2012 tour with Streisand: “It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life,” he says.
As for their current concert dates? “This new tour is more beautiful than the first one,” he says.
Il Volo performs in Toronto at the Molson Amphitheatre on Sept. 7.
Source:nationalpost
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