Vittorio Grigolo on his last meeting with Pavarotti and on finding his siblings

Vit­torio Grigolo is a fire­cracker of a man, explod­ing in all dir­ec­tions, often loudly, caus­ing excite­ment - and a little dis­or­i­ent­a­tion - among those nearby. At least that is the impres­sion he left on Laura Pezzino, journ­al­ist for the Italian Van­ity Fair.

As Grigolo has decided to make Lon­don his base for the time being (before he was in Los Angeles but the 9 hour flights were not good for his voice), Pezzino went to meet him in Chelsea and, after sur­viv­ing his impres­sions, gags, and gen­eral ebul­li­ent beha­viour, she finally man­aged to ask him a few questions.

They covered the usual top­ics: the love of motor­bikes, singing from when he was four years old, his love of pop cul­ture — “Fonzie is one of my idols, together with Fred­die Mer­cury.” — but there are a couple of nug­gets, new to this reader at least. One per­sonal, and one professional.

Do you have any siblings?

Two, a much older brother and a sis­ter, born from my father’s pre­vi­ous rela­tion­ship, which I knew noth­ing about until I was 13. It was a blow: I broke my piggy-bank with my sav­ings and caught a train to Arezzo to meet them. I didn’t know where they lived, so when I arrived at the sta­tion at night I searched for their sur­name in the phone-book. They ran a pub in the town centre. When I walked in I saw this 30-year-old behind the bar, he looked at me and cried: he knew it was me.

It is well known that when he was 13 he played the Pastorello in a per­form­ance of Tosca at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, where he shared the stage with Pav­arotti. It was here that he was given the nick­name ‘Il Pav­arot­tino’ (‘the little Pavarotti’).

How was your last meet­ing with Pavarotti?

I went to see him in Pesaro a month before he died. He was lying down attached to a drip. We were pre­par­ing for my début as Rudolfo in La Bohème in Wash­ing­ton. That day he sang Maria che dolce nome [which Grigolo has recor­ded for his new album Ave Maria, out in Octo­ber].

At a cer­tain point the Maes­tro asked every­one to leave the room, and he said to me, [he imit­ates Pavarotti’s voice] “Champ, you’re not a tenor, you’re a star tenor, and star ten­ors we lack. Go to Wash­ing­ton and grab the suc­cess you deserve.”

Share