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Vittorio Grigolo, ‘the next Pavarotti,’ at the Aspen Music Festival

Andrew Travers
The Aspen Times
Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo will perform Thursday evening at the Benedict Music Tent.
Courtesy photo |

If You Go …

Who: Vittorio Grigolo, presented by the Aspen Music Festival and School

Where: Benedict Music Tent

When: Thursday, July 23, 6 p.m.

How much: $25, $65

Tickets and more info: http://www.aspenmusicfestival.com

Acclaimed Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo will make his Aspen debut this evening in a highly anticipated recital at the Benedict Music Tent.

The 38-year-old singer has been hailed as “the next Pavarotti” since his 2010 debuts at the Metropolitan Opera and London’s Royal Opera House.

“He’s at the beginning phase of an important phase in his career,” Aspen Music Festival and School President and CEO Alan Fletcher said earlier this summer, when Grigolo’s performance was a late addition to the season’s calendar. “He will be one of the biggest opera singers in the world.”



Grigolo will be performing arias and songs from the Italian tradition by Bellini, Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, Tosti, Gastaldon, Leoncavallo, Curtis and D’Annibale. He will be accompanied by pianist Vincenzo Scalera.

“I decided to put all these pieces together and in this particular order because for me in this way it is like painting a beautiful natural landscape like could be here in Aspen,” Grigolo said via email.




The concert will showcase the Italian vocal tradition, from the 1820s to the 1930s, moving mostly in chronological order and offering a crash course on the “bel canto” style, with compositions focused on the voice with minimal accompaniment.

“The Italian melody and style is simple but at the same time so effective and I have to confess that I love both Puccini and Verdi equally,” Grigolo said.

Born in Arezzo, Tuscany, and raised in Rome, Grigolo recalled listening to his father and grandfather singing arias in the mornings as a child, inspiring his passion for opera. Recent years have seen him performing to a crowd of 800,000 at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, earning a Grammy nomination and crossing over into American pop culture with appearances on “Dancing with the Stars” and “The Bachelor.”

Grigolo is hoping to transform the open-air tent into an intimate space through his performance. He encouraged tonight’s audience to “Live the moment of now and don’t think anything else but music,” adding, “I would love to create a special bond, intimate and fresh where we can laugh together while listening (to) great music.”

atravers@aspentimes.com

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