page_title: Andrea Bocelli
section_title: 2006–07: Amore and Vivere, Greatest hits
hierarchical_section_title: Andrea Bocelli / Career / 2006–07: Amore and Vivere, Greatest hits
caption_attribution_description: English: Bocelli rehearsing for his Under the Desert Sky concert in Lake Las Vegas, 2006
context_page_description: Andrea Bocelli OMRI OMDSM is an Italian opera singer, songwriter, tenor and record producer. He was diagnosed with congenital glaucoma at 5 months old, and became completely blind at age 12, following a football accident. After performing evenings in piano bars and competing in local singing contests, Bocelli signed his first recording contract with the Sugar Music label. He rose to fame in 1994, winning the preliminary round of the 44th Sanremo Music Festival performing "Miserere", with the highest marks ever recorded in the newcomers section.
  Since 1982, Bocelli has recorded 15 solo studio albums of both pop and classical music, three greatest hits albums, and nine complete operas, selling over 90 million records worldwide. He has had success as a crossover performer, bringing classical music to the top of international pop charts. His first compilation album, Romanza, is one of the best-selling albums of all time, while Sacred Arias is the biggest selling classical album by any solo artist in history. My Christmas was the best-selling holiday album of 2009 and one of the best-selling holiday albums in the United States.
context_section_description: On 18 February, he sang at the Toyota Center in Houston during the National Basketball Association's (NBA) 2006 All-Star Weekend, and broadcast live on the TNT Cable television network.
  On 26 February, Bocelli sang "Because We Believe" from his Amore album in the Carnevale section of the closing ceremony of the Torino Olympics. He also began another tour with a concert at the Piazza di Castello in Turin. In March, he was honoured by the Italian state with a Grande Ufficiale Italian Order of Merit (Grand Officer of the Italian Republic), given to him by then President of the Italian Republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. The award was presented to him at the Sanremo Festival where he performed a duet with American singer Christina Aguilera on 4 March.
  From 31 March to 2 April, he took part in the Maggio Musicale in Florence where he sang the Canto di pace (Canto of peace) by Marco Tutino and the tenor part from Gioachino Rossini's Messa di Gloria and in Naples where he took part in Rossini's Petite messe solennelle.
  In April 2006, he featured as a guest coach on American Idol helping the finalists sing the week's themed songs, "Greatest Love Songs." He also performed on that week's results show. American Idol runner-up Katharine McPhee performed at three of Bocelli's concerts in California from 9 to 11 June singing duets of Somos Novios and The Prayer with Bocelli. They also performed on J. C. Penney Jam: The Concert for America's Kids and recorded duet versions of Somos Novios for the resulting album, and also Can't Help Falling in Love on the CD of the Under the Desert Sky DVD.
  In June, he sang the Italian duet version of "Because We Believe", "Ama, credi e vai", with Gianna Nannini at the "großen Fan Party" at the opening of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, in Berlin in front of billions of worldwide television viewers.
  On 1 July 2007, Bocelli performed "The Music of the Night" from Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, in a special musicals medley during the Concert for Diana at Wembley Stadium in London, England. Bocelli returned to his home town for a concert at the newly created Teatro del Silenzio in Lajatico on 5 July 2007, with guest appearance by Kenny G, Heather Headley, Lang Lang, Elisa, Sarah Brightman and Laura Pausini. The concert was later released as Vivere Live in Tuscany. In September, he debuted at the Avery Fisher Hall, in New York, with four concerts. October saw the release of the opera album of Ruggiero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci with Bocelli singing the role of Canio. In November, he won the "Best Italian Artist" and "World's Best-selling Classical Artist" awards at the World Music Awards. In December, he finished his 2006 tour with more concerts in North America and Europe.
  Bocelli and Sarah Brightman's duet version of "Con te partirò" was used in the 2007 film Blades of Glory, as an ice skating song. K-1 mixed martial arts fighter Yoshihiro Akiyama started using "Con te partirò" as his ring entrance music. On 8 September, Bocelli sang an arrangement of Mozart's Ave verum corpus at the funeral of Luciano Pavarotti in Modena, Italy.
  On 21 October 2007, he sang "Con te partirò" on the UK television series Strictly Come Dancing results show, and on 30 October, he sang "The Prayer" during an ITV Special An Audience with Céline Dion. The show was broadcast on 23 December. Alongside fellow Italian singer Laura Pausini, he sang Vive Ya during the 2007 Latin Grammy Awards. The song, originally released in 1997 as a duet in Italian between Bocelli and Italian singer-songwriter Trovatto on Bocelli's Romanza, was also released in English on his 2007 album, The Best of Andrea Bocelli: Vivere, as Dare to Live. The album, Vivere, sold over 3 million copies.
caption: Bocelli rehearsing for his Under the Desert Sky concert in Lake Las Vegas, 2006.
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