Opera star Vittorio Grigòlo: 'I am the voice of Italy'

Vittorio Grigòlo, pictured in June 2016
Vittorio Grigòlo, pictured in June 2016 Credit: Rii Schroer/Rii Schroer

Vittorio Grigòlo is charming, talented – and not one for false modesty. Rupert Christiansen met him ahead of his return to Covent Garden

Vittorio Grigòlo is bracing himself to confront his 40th birthday next February. Hailed in his teens as “Il Pavarottino” and as comfortable crooning soft-rock ballads in arenas as he is declaiming arias in great opera houses, the cherubic Italian tenor knows that the time must come when he has to slow down a little.

When we meet at Covent Garden, he has all too typically just fallen off a plane into rehearsals after a seven-day whistle-stop tour of the globe. Yet as anyone who has witnessed his exuberantly impassioned performances will appreciate, living on the edge at full round-the-clock throttle is the only way he knows.

“Critics always say I give too much. But it is giving too much that saves me. I’m like a baby who cries for hours and doesn’t lose his voice. He needs something, and until he gets what he needs, he will only get louder and louder. It is visceral.”

Tenor Vittorio Grigolo singing at the Berlin Philharmonic Hall
Tenor Vittorio Grigolo singing at the Berlin Philharmonic Hall Credit: Getty

Or does that screaming suggest a spoilt brat? Well, Grigòlo is preposterously charming, but probably quite a handful, too. Female admiration is his mother’s milk: in a recent interview to Italian Vanity Fair, talking about his recent divorce from the Iranian Roshi Kamdar, he only half-jokingly described himself as “a sex addict”. But as middle age looms, he says he has found true love with an Italian wine-maker – her name kept discreetly private – and from now on it will be “one woman only. Fidelity is so exciting, pure commitment is so beautiful and strong. I need a stable home.”

Meanwhile, he has matured as a singer. When he made his knockout debut opposite Anna Netrebko in Manon at Covent Garden in 2010, many of us feared that his tendency “to give too much” meant that burn-out would follow swiftly. But six years on, his artistry has consolidated and his voice is in rude health: as a natural show off who can’t keep off the grandstand, he may never become a byword for elegant restraint, but nobody ever walks away from his shows short-changed for heart-on-sleeve commitment.

Vittorio Grigolo in the LA Opera's revival of Gounod's Romeo et Juliette at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in 2011
Vittorio Grigolo in the LA Opera's revival of Gounod's Romeo et Juliette at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in 2011 Credit: Getty

Nor is he any sort of fool: his technique is solid and his career decisions have all been canny. The future is mapped out. In 2018 he will return to Covent Garden to sing his first Cavaradossi in Tosca; two years later, he will sing the heftier Don José in Carmen. Gustavus in Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera, “Pavarotti’s favourite role”, is also on the cards. He clearly knows what he can and can’t do: a CD of sobbingly intense verismo arias will be released shortly, but “they come from operas I will never sing on stage” – drama queen he may be, but he knows his vocal limits.

At Covent Garden his mind is on the challenge of the title role in Massenet’s Werther, an opera that he has never sung on stage before. He can find something of himself in the character. “Yes, I am a big drama queen and a little bit Werther,” he explains in his voluble if idiosyncratic English. “Not that I would suicide myself for a love affair – life is too precious to sacrifice for that. But Werther connects with what connects all my opera roles – he is the man with an ideal of love who is being disappointed trying to reach it.”

Massenet’s lachrymose music is a good fit for him, too. “It is so comfortable in my cords that I feel it belongs to me, but I am glad I did not do this opera when I was younger. You need to bring so many colours to it, so much experience of life. It’s a role that is a peak for me – not the final one, but something special.”

The match between his smouldering Italian intensity and the creamier Irish-American charm of Joyce DiDonato, also making her debut in the role of Werther’s beloved Charlotte, should prove electric.

Grigòlo started off in the business balancing relatively few opera appearances with a busier schedule of crossover concerts that earned him a pot of money and entailed attendant media brouhaha. Recently, however, the balance seems to have tilted away from Mammon towards art. “I thank God I became serious,” he says of this new focus.

Yet he has no regrets about his association with a vulgarity that saw him briefly a regular feature on reality and talent television in the US, flirting on the dating show The Bachelor and strutting a paso doble on Dancing with the Stars. “I had so much fun with that stuff. And you know, I believe that although we must always sing classically, opera singers need to come out and meet the rest of the world. Opera needs to be freshened up.”

It hardly needs to be said that Grigòlo is not short of self-confidence. “I am now the Italian tenor, the voice of Italy,” he tells me unblushingly. “I am proud to carry the flag for my country” – although, ironically, he currently lives in tax-friendly Swiss Lugano.

Born in Arezzo in Tuscany, Grigòlo was heard singing when he accompanied his mother to the optician and was encouraged to apply for the papal school at the Sistine Chapel. He became a chorister. “I saw that Oscar movie Spotlight about abuse, but thank God I had no problems of that sort there. Not one embarrassing caress, not a look or a touch. I am very grateful to everyone who taught me. It was beautiful.”

The Royal Opera Houses's 2010 production of Manon, with Vittorio Grigòlo and Anna Netrebko
The Royal Opera Houses's 2010 production of Manon, with Vittorio Grigòlo and Anna Netrebko Credit: Bill Cooper

Grigòlo admits he still “has a bit of the kid inside” – a tendency chiefly manifested nowadays in his passion for speed behind the wheel. He owns a fleet of cars ranging from a Mini Cooper to a Ferrari, with pride of place afforded to a bespoke Porsche that he has customised himself.

Not surprisingly he is a Top Gear fan, and although he has yet to catch up with the new series led by Chris Evans, he puts out a loud request to appear on the show. “So British, that sense of humour.” Speaking of which, he also hopes to be asked to sing for the Queen. “Perhaps she could knight me Sir Grigòlo or Lord Vittorio.”

There is an admirable fearlessness to Grigòlo. Living up close to such boiling mental and physical dynamism could be exhausting, but there’s an openness about that keeps him likeable. He doesn’t hold back, he doesn’t spare or cosset himself.

He doesn’t even have the usual opera star hang-ups about diet, for instance, and happily drinks a glass of wine at lunchtime before a performance. “Plus constant peppermint bonbons.”

“I’m not scared of anything, even of losing my voice,” he says. “I like problems, I like difficulties. They give me energy. If I find a negative, I want to find a way to convert it into a positive. That has made my life so much richer.”

Werther opens on June 19. Tickets: 020 7304 4000; roh.org.uk

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