GIANLUCA GINOBLE, LIKE his buddies in the teen pop-opera sensation Il Volo, would at the tender age of 18 seem to have it all. With the looks of a young, perfectly coiffed Tony Curtis, a closet full of slim Dolce & Gabbana suits, and stage gigs with the likes of Barbra Streisand and his idols Placido Domingo, he has already done more in his life than a lot of people three times his age.
While other teen pop stars meet early success by, say, vomiting on-stage and relieving themselves in janitors’ mop buckets, it’s refreshing to find Ginoble staying down to earth. The Straight reaches him while he’s on a rare break at his small hillside home of Montepagano, just a few minutes’ walk from the coastal city of Roseto, in the Abruzzo region where he grew up the son of a truck driver.
“We toured from March to July through Latin America and the U.S., so it’s nice right now to be with my friends, hanging out, going to the beach every day, and playing soccer,” the polite, affable young baritone says in a mellifluous Italian accent.
Il Volo’s rocket-ship ride to worldwide stardom started about four years ago, when Ginoble was just 14. All three members were competing in an American Idol–like show in Italy called Ti lascio una canzone. Producers Michele Torpedine (who took care of Andrea Bocelli’s career) and Tony Renis were blown away by the mature sound of their voices and had the brilliant idea to hook them up, like a boy-band Three Tenors. There’s a guy for every taste: Ginoble is the dark and romantic baritone, Piero Barone is the serious one in funky red spectacles, and Ignazio Boschetto brings the big-voiced, dimpled charisma. Think Bocelli sound with One Direction looks, if the latter had a penchant for Italian designer suits.
