At last I got to see "in the flesh" the new sensation in Opera and Pop: Andrea Bocelli.

    Unfortunately the environment was not ideal. The recital/concert was in the Metropolitan in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (do not confuse this Metropolitan with the MET in NY, the Metropolitan in Rio is a show house, where you can see from Pavarotti to a group of samba !!! It has a large stage, large seating (approximately 3200 people) and the audience is surrounded by many bars where people eat and drink, make noise, etc...

    As expected, Bocelli requested that the waiters stopped service prior to the start of the show (the waiters were also supposed to take the bottles and drinks away but they never did).

    As is normal in this house, the show started with a 30-minute delay. The orchestra played the overture from Norma !!! Very strange ! It is the first time I've been to a concert where they play this overture which sounds unusual in this context. Anyway the playing was fine but the sound left reservations. They placed a microphone for each group of instruments, so the harp sounded unusually loud, the violins thin and no dynamics as the space is large and has an appalling acoustic. But let's get down to business.