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 To date, he has recorded six complete operas (La bohиme, Il trovatore, Werther, Pagliacci, Cavalleria rusticana and Tosca) in addition to various classical and pop albums. He has sold 60 million albums worldwide thus far. Born with congenital glaucoma, total blindness came to Bocelli at the age of twelve, after a football accident.
Bocelli was born in Lajatico in Tuscany, Italy in 1958 and grew up on the family farm. At the age of six he started piano lessons before also learning to play the flute and saxophone. Bocelli would also spend time singing during his childhood and would later recall that he was "one of those children who would always be asked to sing for my relatives. I don't think one really decides to be a singer - other people decide it for you by their reactions." In 1970, when he was twelve years old he was blinded in an accident when he was hit in the head during a football match in Tuscany. That same year he also won his first song competition, the Margherita d'Oro in Viareggio with O sole mio.
After he finished secondary school, in 1980 began studying Law at the University of Pisa. After graduating as a Doctor of Law he spent one year as a court appointed lawyer. To pay for the fees Bocelli performed in the evenings at piano bars. Also in 1992 he attended a master-class with Italian tenor Franco Corelli, singing "Che gelida manina" from Giacomo Puccini's La bohиme. Corelli then took him on as a pupil.
Despite his worldwide popularity, Bocelli has been regularly dismissed and severely criticised by some music critics. Some point to his "poor phrasing, uneven tone and lack of technique."
In 1999, the New York Times chief music critic Anthony Tommasini in his review of Bocelli's North American opera debut at the Detroit Opera House in the title role of Massenet's Werther commented, "The basic color of Mr. Bocelli's voice is warm and pleasant, but he lacks the technique to support and project his sound. His sustained notes wobble. His soft high notes are painfully weak. Inadequate breath control often forces him to clip off notes prematurely at the end of phrases." In December 2000 Tommasini again criticised Bocelli, this time for his La bohиme album when he claimed that Bocelli's voice had been "carefully recorded", "to help it match the trained voices of the other cast members in fullness and presence."
In describing Bocelli's singing, prominent New York Times music critic, Bernard Holland, noted "the tone is rasping, thin and, in general, poorly supported. Even the most modest upward movement thins it even more, signalling what appears to be the onset of strangulation. To his credit, Mr Bocelli sings mostly in tune. But his phrasing tends toward carelessness and rhythmic jumble... The diction is not clear."
Bocelli met his future wife Enrica, with whom he had two children, while singing at piano bars early in his career. They were married on 27 June 1992. Their first child, Amos, was born in February 1995. Their second son, Matteo was born in October 1997. The couple divorced in 2002. He has since become engaged to Veronica Berti.
Bocelli's father, Sandro Bocelli, died on 30 April 2000. His mother encouraged him to honour his commitments and so he sang for the Pope in Rome on 1 May and immediately returned home for the funeral. At the 5 July performance that was filmed for PBS as American Dream — Andrea Bocelli's Statue of Liberty Concert, Bocelli dedicated the encore Sogno to the memory of his father. A section of the way along the beach in Jesolo, on the Italian Adriatic coast, was named after Bocelli on 11 August 2003.
In 2006, Bocelli influenced the municipality of Lajatico (his home village) to build an outdoor theatre the "Teatro del Silenzio". Bocelli performed for one night only. One night every July the theatre will be opened for performances. The rest of the time it will be silent.
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