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| October 28, 2008 |
| Superstar Tenor Andrea Bocelli To Launch New Album At Concert For 80,000 People In Naples, Italy |
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 A return to the Golden Age of Italian Song
Incanto to be released on 3rd November
The world's eyes and ears will turn to Naples on Friday 24 October for an unmissable concert and a truly historic event. Andrea Bocelli is set to charm an audience of around 80,000 people in the elegant Piazza del Plebiscito and broadcast live to the nation. The great tenor's programme, drawn from the golden age of Italian music, includes timeless Neapolitan classics and other popular songs from his new album, Incanto. In short, Bocelli's performance is set to reignite global passions for one of the most expressive, romantic and heart–warming of all musical genres, the Neapolitan song.
Andrea Bocelli's Incanto programme offers a reminder of an age when people were prepared to sing their cares away. Long before destiny selected Andrea Bocelli for international stardom, the tenor from Tuscany fell in love with the songs of Naples. These pieces supply the beating heart of Incanto, released in Italy on 24th October, and will bring essential life to his Piazza del Plebiscito performance. "This repertoire certainly comes from my heart," he explains. "This repertoire always puts me in a good mood; it helps me to see through those long days waiting in theatre dressing–rooms, in television studios, in hotel rooms, where there's hardly anything to do but read and listen to music. These songs have been part of my life since I was a child."
The repertoire for the album and concert includes such evergreens as Cesare Andrea Bixio's "Mamma", a massive hit in the 1930s for Beniamino Gigli, "Non ti scordar di me" by Ernesto de Curtis, and Luigi Denza's irresistible "Funiculì, Funiculà", written in 1880 in homage to the recently opened funicular railway to the summit of Mount Vesuvius. Andrea Bocelli's passion for these songs is matched by his determination to bridge today's gap between opera and popular music. He points to the past tradition of great operatic tenors singing Neapolitan song. "Enrico Caruso sang them; Beniamino Gigli sang them. They sang songs that people remember as much, perhaps even more, than opera arias."
As a preface to his Piazza del Plebiscito concert, Andrea Bocelli has convened an international press conference for 3.30pm on 23 October in the ornate surroundings of the Hotel Excelsior, opposite the legendary Castel dell'Ovo on via Partenope.
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