Vittorio Grigolo talks about his voice, his art, his country… and motorbikes

Vit­torio Grigolo, already saddled with the label “the new Pav­arotti”, gave a long inter­view to the Italian news­pa­per Il Cor­ri­ere della Sera’s Style Magazine. He talked about his love of motor­bikes, Italy and singing. Here are some excerpts:

Who is he?

I grew up with Happy Days and my favour­ite char­ac­ter was Fonzie; always busy work­ing on a motor­bike, the leather jacket, and hands dirty with grease, the vest and the cigar­ette; I don’t miss the chance of a cigar­ette every now and then either, and without all the para­noia of an opera singer…

… My first man­ager was Gian­carlo Mat­teucci, the same as Gian­carlo Fis­ichella [For­mula One cham­pion]. I have a 1991 Yamaha R1 Super­bike, which isn’t really inten­ded for the streets, but I rode it from Rome to Zurich. Crazy. I felt like Max Biaggi. It all went well until it star­ted to rain, which the tyres weren’t designed for, but I thought, oh well, just a little rain, at least it’s not hail. Of course, an intense hail­storm arrived. I got to Zurich, and my back was killing me, but I need those moments of solitude. They are my Zen moments. To rebuild an old Porche piece by piece, build and take apart radio-controlled heli­copters: that’s enough to enable me to face the con­tracts, the study, and the accountants!

I don’t mind, as it’s a job I love, but it took away my youth: never going to a disco, always trav­el­ling; a steep learn­ing curve which, although brief, was crazily intense. When I was 17 or 18 years-old I was singing in the pizzerias of the Ven­eto region doing 18 con­certs in a row. Finally one even­ing, exhausted, I looked at myself in the mir­ror and said: if you don’t burn your­self out now, you never will. Cut­ting your teeth like that makes you grow men­tally, and pre­pares you for anything.

An opera singer, without a micro­phone, in front of a theatre full of people who, in some cit­ies, are only wait­ing for you to put a foot wrong, is like a tor­eador. I’m a tor­eador in the opera bull­ring, risk­ing everything each even­ing for the music that is my life. Inside the theatre I am that opera char­ac­ter, com­pletely, my life becomes that of the char­ac­ter: I fall in love, I laugh, I cry. As an artist I’m gen­er­ous and it takes me a long time after­wards to recharge my bat­ter­ies because I give everything. I sing and I act, and often we’re being filmed by high-definition cam­eras for a dvd or a live sim­ul­cast streamed to the inter­net or cinemas. But out­side the theatre all this dis­ap­pears: repair­ing bikes and speed are my ways of escaping.

About rep­er­toire

What is Domingo’s secret [for a long career]? There is no one rule for every­one. Each singer who has a long career must find their own answer. There are those who who are burnt out in two or three years, and dis­ap­pear. Mirella Freni, the sop­rano par excel­lence, says that her career was built on her abil­ity to say no. I have can­celled roles when I’ve seen that they’re not right for my voice: I risked singing Don Car­los. The per­form­ances went well, but took my pas­sag­gio down by half a tone, too much, and then how can you move on to a lighter role like in La Bohème? You can’t stretch a voice like that. So for now no more Don Car­los. I also can­celled Norma in Zurich after I real­ised, study­ing the role, that Pol­lione didn’t fit me, at east not for now. It is pain­ful, but neces­sary, to say no.

On travel

With aero­planes we’re always on the move, you don’t always find a gym, or the right things to eat, which can be a prob­lem. You have to be always in form, which in the past wasn’t neces­sary. Beniamino Gigli and Enrico Caruso, the greatest yes?, but they trav­elled by boat, the pres­sure was dif­fer­ent. And they didn’t have HD video around when they put on an extra kilo…

On Alfredo Kraus

The most eleg­ant of them all, though the pub­lic out­side the opera world don’t know him. But he wanted it that way, he was a prince. As [Italian comic and noble­man] Totò said “Signori si nasce” [“Gen­tle­men are born”, the title of a film], and Maes­tro Kraus was born that way.

On opera

For most of the world opera means Italian opera. In other coun­tries this achieve­ment would make every­one proud. Instead with the cut­backs and cer­tain care­less­ness we find that in addi­tion to the sci­entific brain drain, there is also a drain of musical tal­ent: to make it I had to leave and go to Zurich. It drives me mad that opera is seen by many young­sters as being no longer rel­ev­ant, yet it is some­thing that all kids, and I mean all, love without know­ing it. Scar­face, The God­father? Opera stor­ies. Pretty Woman? La Travi­ata. Raging Bull uses the music of Pietro Mascagni.

On Italy

With the anniversary this year of the uni­fic­a­tion of Italy, we’re talk­ing once more about our coun­try with a little pride. Until last year if you men­tioned Cavour, or Aless­andro Man­zoni, or Ugo Foscolo, as I like to, you were looked on as being a madman.

And he quotes Manzoni’s ode March 1821 which cel­eb­rates the new Italy, from the Alps to the sea: people shar­ing the same lan­guage, the same blood, the same heart.

Photo: Anne

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