Mental Health Break: Paul Potts Singing Nessum Dorma

The video is here.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, Music

6 comments on “Mental Health Break: Paul Potts Singing Nessum Dorma

  1. Jeffersonian says:

    What a great story his is. Thanks for that, Dr. Harmon.

  2. Old Soldier says:

    I have his CD. Well worth the money and them some!

  3. robroy says:

    Here is Pavarotti’s [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VATmgtmR5o4&feature=related ]version[/url]. Really makes one appreciate Pavarotti all the more. A much richer and vibrant voice.

  4. Jeffersonian says:

    Paul Potts is no Pavarotti, but then again, who is?

  5. D. C. Toedt says:

    And of course Aretha’s version at the Grammys, on 22 minutes notice (after Pavarotti called in sick), without a key change ….

  6. TACit says:

    That was a wonderful reminder; thanks to the blog-host. (I checked out Aretha’s version, #5 – well, sorry but I couldn’t get past “Tu pure o Principessa’, which comes right after ‘Nessun’ dorma’….when one knows this is a secretive love song addressed to an ice-hearted Chinese princess Aretha’s version just doesn’t work…..).
    I would agree with #s 3 and 4 that Potts’ is not a phenomenal voice, but it is a warm, willing and trained voice, more so now than in mid-2007 when he won Britain’s Got Talent. Thinking in that vein I popped open the video in the sidebar about Potts in Mexico, and enjoyed watching the 5 minutes’ worth of comments by talk-show hosts and random Mexicans, between clips of Potts singing mainly Bocelli’s ‘Con te partiro’. They each said how successfully Potts’ singing had touched their emotions. I noticed that Potts’ delivery of Italian is remarkably fluent for an Englishman. This clip reveals the far larger audiences than the English-speaking world for the cultural edu-tainment that Potts can deliver.
    Later in the day somewhat randomly I learned that the evening of Feb. 3 in Caracas, the marvelous Rossini tenor, Peruvian Juan Diego Florez, teamed with Gustavo Dudamel, the young Venezuelan who now conducts the LA Symphony, for a concert of Bellini, Rossini, Donizetti and the like – which must have been fabulous, would have given anything to have TV access or be there! – and it occurred to me that the survival of some features of Western culture may depend far more on the cultural maturing of Latin American populations [i]including those in major US cities[/i] than on Anglo-Teutonic North America (unless one idolizes Wagner particularly). Placido Domingo has really started a movement that will shape musical cultural for generations.