My dear friend Maura Pucci, whom you all have already known, wrote a nice post that I will translate with great pleasure, knowing that you will surely appreciate it.
Maura, please don’t keep us waiting too long for the second episode !!😉
Daniela 😘
Today, I will answer two questions I asked myself.
The first is: “Who is the audience of Il Volo?”
It is necessary to start from two irrefutable statements:
1) Il Volo is an internationally successful musical group.
2) Their audience is mainly female.
Like all the artists who have had great international success, Il Volo is not aimed at an elite group of connoisseurs, but at a vast and heterogeneous audience, both from a socio-cultural point of view and from the point of view of age. As far as the latter is concerned, internationality constitutes the discriminating element, since age varies according to … longitudes and latitudes.
For example :
~ in Europe and the United States the public is on average more adult, but no less passionate;
~ in Mexico, Central America and South America a young audience prevails, made up in particular of chicas, which are unleashed like fans of rockstars;
~ a more composed audience of all ages is found in Asia, where classical music is a true cult (many oriental youths come to study in our conservatories) and, during the concerts, we witness the individual performances of the pieces in religious silence until the final ovation.
I take this opportunity to add here, incidentally and for the avoidance of the usual misunderstandings, that, in their repertoire of about two hundred songs, we find only four arias taken from lyrical works (two by Puccini, one by Verdi, one by Donizetti) a tarantella by Rossini and a romance by Leoncavallo …..
The fact that the public in general (fans in particular) is a large female majority is an element common to many if not all the fandoms of famous singers.
But in the case of the Il Volo boys the difference consists in the fact that in Italy and in the United States in particular, they were known when they were almost children, and the sentimental and romantic women, enchanted by their voices, became tender and affectionate. They saw them grow and from teenagers to become young men. They followed their physical transformations, and the maturation of their voices, establishing a particular relationship with them.
Ultimately the audience of Il Volo can be divided into the following groups:
A) The real fans, active on social networks, connected by a dense network of fan pages or fan clubs, in the number of about four thousand. They “adopted” the three boys, creating an intense relationship with them, I dare say visceral. Depending on the age, they are considered older brothers, object of desire, children, grandchildren. These fans follow Il Volo daily through news, photos, videos, interviews. They participate in numerous concerts, including moving from region to country and continent.
B) The most consistent band is represented by the television audience. In Italy, it is the one that contributes to procuring the famous “listening peaks” of Auditel for Il Volo and to make their concerts sold out. The same can be said for the United States where the PBS network has recorded some concerts since 2012 and broadcasts them, I believe periodically, through over 300 television stations that it represents.
A nod to a category of people that I do not consider “audience” but who have a positive relationship with Il Volo. It can be consideration, appreciation, affection, friendship, collaboration. Which does not automatically and in any case entail the liking of their music. I speak of VIPs, characters known in every field. They are too many and I don’t list them. I will only mention two names of “men of power” characters: Pope Francis and Kim, the leader of North Korea, namely the devil and holy water! …
I refer you to the next episode, again for an interlocutory answer. (Why does Il Volo like it?) And finally for my conclusions.
Maura Pucci
Credit to owners of all photos.