Now This is Singing

I forgot how much I used to love and appreciate truly good singing by more "classic" artists (i.e. non-pop-stars). I'm not sure if it was my dad's love for beautiful music or my background in figure skating (where we almost always skated to a classical piece of music), but I rediscovered it at random the other day. My mom was telling me about how there was a man on the TV show Britain's Got Talent who looked like a blue collar worker but who sang beautiful opera (yea, that happened awhile ago, but you know I'm a bit behind on news sometimes). What I especially like about the story is how they (the judges and the audience) so wrongly judged him by his looks. You have to see the video below to understand, but basically, he walks up on the stage and they ask him what he's there for. He says, "To sing opera." The judges roll their eyes and it's as if they, as well as, the whole audience thinks he's mad. But, the music starts and Paul begins to sing Nessun Dorma...to the shock of everyone...it's simply beautiful. Can you believe this raw talent? You show 'em, Paul... you show 'em:


I don't know what it is about this song, but I want to listen to it over and over and over again...I can't get enough! I've been listening mostly to this version by the great Pavarotti live in Paris in 1998:


In case you're a figure skating fan, here's skating great Brian Boitano skating to Nessun Dorma for his Artistic Program at the 1994 Gold Championships:


Ok, now that we're all sick of Nessun Dorma, I'm off to finish cleaning my house...almost there...phew!