(Photo credit: Mario Cervantes)

The opera pop trio, Il Volo got their start 15 years ago in the Eurovision competition. Today, the group featuring Piero Barone, Ignazio Boschetto, and Gianluca Ginoble, have nearly one million followers on Instagram, over two million subscribers on YouTube, and over three million likes on TikTok. Last year alone, Il Volo performed in Rome for Pope Leo XIV and at the global peace event “Grace for the World.”

Currently, Il Volo is on a world tour with its North American leg starting April 15, in Denver, CO. Il Volo talked with OperaWire about their hopes for the tour and why they love touring on this side of the world.

OperaWire: What stop are you most looking forward to on this tour?

Piero Barone: The United States has been one of the main stages for us. When we first started out, we moved from Italy to the States because we signed a contract with a label company and they welcomed us since the very beginning. So, it’s like our second home.

We are very excited because, I don’t know how many tours we’ve had in the states, but every time we go back to the USA it is different. This year, we will go back with a more classical segment of the show and we really know the audience and what they would like to listen to so we can choose our repertoire.

OW: How do you tailor the repertoire to each stop on the tour?

Gianluca Ginoble: Our goal is to spread Bel Canto and the Italian melodies all over the world. We’ve been through many experiences and we’ve performed with Americans like Barbra Streisand in 2012, so of course we want to spread the traditional music, but we also sing American standards like, “My Way” or an Elvis song with an orchestral arrangement. It’s a very beautiful repertoire full of emotions, especially with the orchestra behind us, that helps us to convey all the emotions and so this is what makes people really emotional.

This is what we are trying to do is to spread Bel Canto also to the young generations. We are 30, but also, we have 17 years of career, because we started when we were kids. So this time we are working on a set list with more standards and classical guitar not just our own sounds because we have our signature sound and we also sing in English, Spanish, Italian, and French, but of course, in the States we sing most of the repertoire in Italian and English.

Actually, in America a lot of artists in the 2000s like, Il Divo, Josh Groban, and other American singers used to sing in Italian even if they were not Italian. At that time, Italian music was really strong there, and it’s a really strong culture all around the world. Like in Las Vegas with the Bellagio, it’s something they want to recreate because they want a piece of Italy in America. So that’s why we want to bring it to them.

OW: Can you give us a sneak peak of the set list?

Ignazio Boschetto: There’s “Nessum dorma,” “O sole Mio,” the Giuseppe Verdi arias, “Smile,” and we’re singing soundtracks, and some of our own songs, of course. The goal of this tour is singing in places that we’ve never played, except for Los Angeles. We’re going to be in places that we’ve never sang or visited, so it’s just to amplify our knowledge of USA and the knowledge of people who never had the chance to come to our concert.

OW: How do you turn such a wide range of repertoire into a cohesive concert?

PB: What all these songs have in common in our set list is our personality. So, our goal in every single song we sing is to give the Il Volo personality and to sing all of them in our way. So the aria, “Nessun dorma,” it won’t be late (in the concert) because it is very easy to listen to, but very hard to sing. It’s also in the way you sing them, its all within the classical mode. So that’s the reason why the repertoire we’re singing is called ‘crossover,’ because we bring all these songs and we make it in our way. 

GG: It’s also like how everything started with Pavarotti and then Andrea Bocelli. It’s the same with pop music, Michael Jackson, things started with him, then The Weekend, and Bruno Mars became inspired by him, and this is what we are trying to do. Of course, we are all inspired by the artist of our days, but also the past. We would like to be the next generation that brings Bel Canto to people of our age.

OW: Is there anything else you would like to add about this tour?

GG: It’s amazing that we, after almost 20 years together, we are still touring, still spreading Bel Canto, still seeing our audience grow–and to see people growing up with us. We have a very faithful fan base because they really love this kind of music. So, as I said, this is a mission for us to keep growing as people, as artists, and to give a better performance for our audience that really love us and that we love back.

IB: Come to the concert and have one night in Italy!