Il Divo For Life Site Admin
Geregistreerd op: 05 Jul 2010 Berichten: 34 Woonplaats: Belgium/With Seb
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Geplaatst: 31-08-2010 18:53:37 Onderwerp: Telegraph : Manhattan swoons to the 'popera' boys : 2006 |
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Melissa Whitworth reviews Il Divo at Radio City Music Hall, New York
Il Divo have managed to do what Robbie Williams and Kylie couldn't - that is, conquer the lucrative US market. Millions of middle-aged American women have gone wild for the four Adonises who cover pop songs in quasi-operatic tones.
The elusive American audience proved no match for Simon Cowell's manufactured but classically trained "popera" group after an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show last April. This month, Il Divo arrived in New York - one of 13 cities on the American leg of their first world tour - to promote their second album, Ancora.
Manhattan's Radio City Music Hall (where Barney the Purple Dinosaur also plays later this year) was sold out. In the lobby, fans could swig a strawberry "Divo Daiquiri" before taking their seats.
As Carlos (Spanish, baritone, the Casanova), David (American, tenor, the boy next door), Urs (Swiss, tenor, the pretty boy) and Sebastien (French, vox populi, the hunk) crooned Toni Braxton's Unbreak My Heart in Italian, a white-haired woman in one row wiped a tear from her eye. Each song followed the same formula; starting with one Divo taking a solo turn, then all four contributing to a full-throttle, ear-shattering crescendo, complete with strobe-light display and dry ice.
The audience's cheers and screams got louder. A female voice yelled: "We love you!" Throughout it all, Carlos's quiff and quizzically cocked eyebrow stayed in place. (His personal ambition, he says on their website, is "to have all the knickers on my wall of all the beautiful girls they throw to us on stage!")
Il Divo perform with a 20-piece orchestra and a "rock" band - pianist, bass, drums and two electric guitars. The two played an instrumental version of Live and Let Die while the boys jogged off stage to change out of one Armani suit into another.
All By Myself and Unchained Melody were sung in Italian, to the crowd's utter delight. There was much frenzied clapping, arms outstretched to the ceiling. Before one song, David said: "In my fantasy, I see a world where everyone lives in peace and harmony."
The concert wasn't entirely covers. They also performed I Believe, an "original Il Divo song", recorded with Celine Dion for Ancora. "This is the song I am most proud of," said Urs.
The worst thing about the night was the boys' banter between songs: staged, back-slapping exchanges bubbling with fake bonhomie and cheesy jokes. It could have been a comedy set on a cruise ship.
Mama, the penultimate song, was dedicated to all the mothers in the audience, "because," they said, "without our mums we would not be here tonight". The lyrics went: "I am what I am because of you/I miss you."
Then, just when it seemed the cringe factor had reached its peak, they belted out My Way, each holding a red rose. The fans were in raptures. _________________
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