"You are my heroes, listening to my voice in the rain" said Andrea Bocelli to fans as they listened to his stunning concert under a summer downpour.
The Italian tenor was performing at BST Hyde Park on July 5, accompanied by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Crouch End Festival Choir.
Celebrating 30 years in music, the singer began with the powerful La Donna è Mobile before a mind-blowing series of performances in the largest classical concert to take place in Europe this century.
Heavy showers poured down on the audience, most wearing anoraks or ponchos.
But the quality of the voices and performances - one from flautist Andrea Griminelli - was so special that I couldn't pull out my phone for a photo, I just had to listen, gobsmacked.
Among the best was from mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, singing a sultry Habanera, L'amour est un oiseau rebelle, from Bizet's Carmen.
Soprano Nadine Sierra and Bocelli sang the drinking aria from Verdi's La Traviata, with Bocelli holding the final note seemingly forever.
Baritone Luca Micheletti joined Leonard, Sierra and Bocelli for Puccini's La Boheme. Even for opera luddites such as myself, these solos and duets were breathtaking.
The second section of the show began with Bocelli's stunning duet with Italian gospel and blues artist Zucchero Fornaciari on Miserere, while old films of Pavorotti, Bocelli and Zuccherro played on the screens.
Special guest Seal then sang a beautiful duet of Amazing Grace with Bocelli, who became blind at the age of 12 after suffering a brain haemorrhage as the result of a football accident.
Bocelli then sang My Way, popularised by Frank Sinatra, which was followed by Seal singing his 1990s hit Kiss From A Rose.
"I like singing with an incredible orchestra," said the 61-year-old, "It's like lying on the most comfortable bed you could ever imagine or being driven in the most expensive Rolls Royce."
Sitting with an acoustic guitar, Bocelli then introduced his daughter Virginia, 12, joking that they’d sing a song like they do at home, but this time she’d need to be good.
There was a rapturous applause as she sang the opening lines to Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, displaying the same vocal gift as her brother Matteo, who had opened the show earlier.
Bocelli then brought on the "incredible talent and an incredible composer”, German film-script composer Hans Zimmer.
The pair launched into Nelle Tue Mani, taken from the Gladiator soundtrack,
quickly followed by Chevalier de Sangreal and Time from The Da Vinci Code and Inception, respectively.
In a fitting finale, Bocelli ended with Nessun Dorma, from Puccini's opera Turandot and one of the best-known tenor arias in all opera and quite possibly the world.
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