In 2016, after Sanremo and Eurovision, Italy woke up to the realization that Piero, Ignazio and Gianluca weren’t just the winners of Ti Lascio Una Canzone 2009, no they were a force to be reckoned with! They had traveled the world and made their mark in every corner of the world. They were riding high and now it was time for Italy to pursue them and not the other way around.
Is it a wonder that the guys were riding high! Italy opened its eyes, and their fate was sealed! The Grande Amore Tour had them spinning but perhaps their proudest moments were PALASPORT 2016 at home with the Italian people. I like to go back and watch thes videos because I can see how much the guys enjoyed these concerts. After all they were in their comfort zone ~ home!
But before we move on to Italy let’s first listen to some beautiful videos from the North America part of the Tour.
New York
Washington DC
San Diego
I thought about how the guys are preparing for the upcoming Latin America Tour so, I went back Through the Field of My Mind, and I pulled some of these videos from the Latin America Tour 2016.
Let’s start with this beautiful video that was created by Il Volo ~ Italian Fan Club.
Chile
Argentina
Mexico
At this point, I remembered an article by Daniela where she translated an interview with some of the people behind the scenes and it was very interesting so, I decided to include it here. Beautiful translation by Daniela!
These last two years the Morricone project has brought the guy’s center stage doing one interview after another. Endless interviews! It was the same after Sanremo. In that period the guys had so many interviews and they had to repeat the same answers over and over again.
Today I’m giving the guys a break! I’m letting someone else do the talking. So, instead of all those questions and answers let’s look at an interview by the technical team from 2016 while we listen to the wonderful voices of Il Volo!
The date is 2016 and the Grande Amore Tour is under way between Italy, Europe and America.
The guys are already into the tour but there is always the fine-tuning for each concert. The crew is together, and they will lead us through the technicalities but without all the long technical parts.
This interview was written for the Sound & Lite newspaper. One of the persons interviewed was their production manager, Eliana Dalila Biondi, who is from Argentina.
IL VOLO – Live Palasport 2016 by Douglas Cole
They call this “Pòpera” a resurgence of opera in the field of popular music and a phenomenon that, in our humble opinion, returns a little faith in the ability of the general public to discern a true capacity for musical performance … because taste apart, the talent and work necessary to develop virtuosity with the lyric voice as an instrument are undeniable. So far, in this latest return of classical singing, the foreign public has been more receptive than the Italians.
Il Volo became the first Italian group in history to directly sign a record deal in America, before that in Italy.
Since the release of the first album, this trio has been almost constantly on tour in North America, South America, Europe and Italy.
In 2012, in addition to a tour in Latin America and the Il Volo Takes Flight Tour in the United States, the group also did a very rare (and very successful) tour with Barbra Streisand, which cemented their fame in American pop. Since then, every year they do at least two Il Volo tours on at least two continents.
Having been taken away to America at the very beginning of their career and despite a large number of concerts in Italy, since the beginning of last year with the almost fortuitous victory of “Grande Amore” at the Sanremo Festival and with the consequent representation of Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest (third place, but with the prize of the press), Il Volo was still rather unknown in our country (Italy).
2015, on the other hand, marked the true return to the homeland, with their new album Sanremo Grande Amore which earned a triple platinum record, and a very successful summer tour, culminating in a big event at the Arena di Verona in September, re-transmitted in prime time on RAI 1. Well … better late than never: welcome home, guys!
(I absolutely love this video because the whole audience sang with them. It gave me chills! It really was a welcome home, Sign of Approval!)
We crossed this tour more or less halfway, on a date at the Unipol Arena in Bologna, where we found the production manager, Eliana Dalila Biondi.
Elinana: I have been working for Michele Torpedine since 2011. In 2013, during a tour in South America, Michele asked me to follow the production. I am Argentine and, as a matter of language, I was the right person for the role. In that case we did a tour with local productions, 28 dates in 50 days …
This year, instead, it was decided to take the step, organizing the tour in the arenas. We have prepared this project together with Francesco de Cave (lights and show-design) for a world tour, which starts from Italy and then goes to the United States and then back to Europe.
Douglas: With the whole production?
Eliana: In Italy and the United States with the entire production, while in Europe we use local production materials, and we bring the direction, with us.
Douglas: Is this production a big leap forward compared to last summer?
Eliana: Yes, because this summer fundamentally focused on natural scenery: Taormina and other picturesque places where there was no need for much. The guys really don’t need much … they do the show. (Truer words were never spoken)
Douglas: The boys already seem very good at working the stage with professionalism!
Eliana: They are very confident of their abilities, in a positive sense, so they are never arrogant. They’ve been doing this job since they were 14, so they grew up on music and the stage. They have security dictated by experience. On stage they create a very nice atmosphere, thanks to their jokes and complicity with the public they have created over time and in many live performances.
Douglas: How many are you on tour?
Eliana: About sixty, and if we add the orchestra of as many as 34 elements in each city … we arrive at a beautiful number.
Douglas: Are the orchestras different at each stage?
Eliana: Unlike last summer, where there was always the same orchestra, this year due to a calendar issue we chose to take local orchestras.
Douglas: Logistically, for orchestral music rehearsals, how do you do it?
Eliana: There is a lot of work that is done upstream. All the material of the repertoire is collected, and our musical director sends it in advance to the orchestras who do the tests independently. Then there were also rehearsals with the Maestro who, whenever possible, anticipated the production to be able to listen and guide the orchestras before the concert … maybe even the morning of the show or, even, in the case of back-to-back long, a few hours before the concert!
Douglas: I ask Alessio Guerrieri, stage director, if it is difficult to manage, such as artists, Piero, Ignazio and Gianluca.
Alessio: Absolutely not! Indeed: they are very good. They are not used to doing great tests … in fact when Francesco De Cave arrived, who was new to the production and was planning the show, he asked me: ‘But how will we explain a show to them in two days?’ I reassured him by telling him that he had to do only the lineup and explain the dynamics of the show: the artists would do exactly what was required of them, every time. In fact, they come from a lyrical musical setting and training, so they have a completely different kind of discipline. Since they have to do a precise warm-up routine, they have to eat and do everything according to a fixed schedule. If the show is at 9pm, for example, you know they have to eat at 6pm, and they do the same things every day. They are very square, and this is our luck. It is also important as a form of respect. If they give me the time of the show, I send the orchestra at 8:55 pm and the artists are on stage at 9:00 pm. To date we have never started a minute late. They are very professional and attentive to these things. And I assure you that it is not at all obvious.
Douglas: (Asked the sound engineer, Enrico Belli.) How much does the show depend on the orchestra?
Enrico: Very much of course for classic songs. They are songs that the singers sing singularly (in fact they don’t always sing in three, but they also make duets and solo pieces) mostly on classical works that almost completely depend on the orchestra and the piano.
Douglas: We also ask the lighting operator, Emanuele Vangelatos, for an opinion.
Emanuele: In the show there is a good balance between the most static scenes, used on classic, beautiful, colored pieces, developed in depth along with the video, and the more dynamic ones of the pop songs, in which we also push a lot, because we have projectors able to move the scene a lot.
The pieces of the solos, which are almost all purely lyrical, are in fact illuminated with very static and intimate, almost theatrical scenes. When there are the pieces in trio, plus pop, there is a director behind them, and the director has also coordinated and agreed about the movements of the artists on stage.
Paradoxically, says the engineer, despite their young age, they have several years of experience on stage. The presence is there, and the public greatly appreciates it. Everywhere we did the full: it is a confirmation of the fact that they are also strong in Italy.
Despite my personal tastes, I respect the musical talent of any kind without reservation, and I appreciate a majestic performance of any kind. I didn’t know Il Volo before and when I was told what kind of concert it would be, I was very afraid of having to suffer the evening.
Instead, it is a really pleasant concert. It was taken for granted that the boys were good at singing, but the lineup includes so many songs with an almost universal familiarity that the interest never drops – even during the moments of speech, in which the artists show total control of the stage and the audience. I am amazed by the audience, made up equally of teenage girls and elderly men out for an annual evening, often with the two categories combined in groups of grandparents with their grandchildren: universal appeal!
The mix is very well done, with an orchestra that even seems to come from recorded tracks (called as a compliment!) and a very sensitive hand in following the dynamics of that type of voice taken with handheld microphones. The sound in the room is very beautiful, especially in the platea (the central and lower part of the theater). We believe that a couple of delays would not have done any harm to offer a greater direct reflection relationship at the back of the room.
The visual spectacle is truly remarkable. The effect of the video that comes out and incorporates the orchestra is really effective. The inevitable central staircase to the Broadway, with skyline in LED, immediately imposes the tone of the show, but it is anything but a static set design. Even the light design is very flexible: sometimes it offers bandstand show lighting, with colorful or white scenes combined with graphics and lights, in others it looks like a pop or rock music show with backlight.
I think Daniela said it best when she said, in the original article, “I was pleased to read the admiration towards our guys, from the technical team that supports them on their travels.
It is a very important thing and makes us understand the harmony in the team, also due to the seriousness of Piero, Ignazio and Gianluca, guys sometimes jokers, but also real professionals.”
Exactly right Daniela!
And now we await the Latin America Tour. With about three weeks to go, I’m sure the guys are busy putting the finishing touches on the setlist. I’m sure it includes many songs we are familiar with and the wonderful new songs from Il Volo Sings Morricone. And certainly, their latest song, COMO VAI VOCÊ. And as was mentioned earlier, all the material of the repertoire are collected in advance, and the musical director sends it in advance to the orchestras who work independently. When they arrive on stage in February, all teams will be ready to go!
I want to sum this article up by saying, our guys have total control of the stage and the audience. The music in each concert is framed and the setlist is run according to their audience. In some cases, the music in Italy will be different from that of North America or South America but the classics always remain. But above all, as this article shows, Italy may have been the last to get on the bandwagon but I’m sure you noticed when they did, they went all out! The trio becomes an auditorium of singers!
They certainly have universal appeal!
There were many wonderful events in 2016 And Then There was Palasport a great end to a wonderful tour! I must say I enjoyed reliving PALASPORT 2016, and I hope you enjoyed it too!
And now, for your listening pleasure here is the complete concert from Milan. Part 1 and Part 2
Bosky update
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Wow! Susan thank you for this. I’m going to go back to concert videos to look for the work of their technicians. When they left the U. S. because of covid I thought I remembered that they said a hundred people traveled with them. Now we know who they are.
Susan, just when I think I’ve seen just about all the Il Volo videos, you find more terrific ones. “Eternally”–a gorgeous song that I didn’t even realize they had done, and the Sud America Italian fan club video was amazing. Grazie mille for this wonderful post.
Eternally is on th L’Amore Si Muove disc, or the Grand Amore disc–which are basically the same thing, the first being the Italian one and the other one the international edition.
I like Eternally better than Be My Love–I think the harmonies are exquisite! Just close your eyes and let the music sink in–aaaaahh! Just simply lovely.
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Thank you Susan, as usual you gave us another lovely evening to spent with our guys…..Always a joy and a pleasure to be with them! Thanks for the memories……Blessings to you and yours, Carol
So many videos!!! But, one by one I’ll watch them all. The ones from Argentina really have the audience participating. Such a wag that Igna is, bouncing back and forth across the stage. He is so full of beans, sometimes I wonder just what he’s on???? Just joking. He is just enthusiastic about life in general and that’s wonderful. Dol
Thank you Susan for another look back on thier tours ,loved the videos ,to hear them sing Eternally ,Ignazio is such fun and a great talent ,i wish they would come to England soon ,regards Pam [Wales]
Susan
Loved he article
Susan
Wonderful story and songs
Love Jenny
Susan
Great Article love the songs
Jenny
Awesome article, thank you!
Wow! Susan thank you for this. I’m going to go back to concert videos to look for the work of their technicians. When they left the U. S. because of covid I thought I remembered that they said a hundred people traveled with them. Now we know who they are.
Again, Amazing article remembering Il Volo. Thank you.
Susan, just when I think I’ve seen just about all the Il Volo videos, you find more terrific ones. “Eternally”–a gorgeous song that I didn’t even realize they had done, and the Sud America Italian fan club video was amazing. Grazie mille for this wonderful post.
Eternally is on th L’Amore Si Muove disc, or the Grand Amore disc–which are basically the same thing, the first being the Italian one and the other one the international edition.
Thanks, Penina–don’t know how I missed it!
I like Eternally better than Be My Love–I think the harmonies are exquisite! Just close your eyes and let the music sink in–aaaaahh! Just simply lovely.
Thank you Susan, as usual you gave us another lovely evening to spent with our guys…..Always a joy and a pleasure to be with them! Thanks for the memories……Blessings to you and yours, Carol
So many videos!!! But, one by one I’ll watch them all. The ones from Argentina really have the audience participating. Such a wag that Igna is, bouncing back and forth across the stage. He is so full of beans, sometimes I wonder just what he’s on???? Just joking. He is just enthusiastic about life in general and that’s wonderful. Dol
Thank you Susan for another look back on thier tours ,loved the videos ,to hear them sing Eternally ,Ignazio is such fun and a great talent ,i wish they would come to England soon ,regards Pam [Wales]