The Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli is blessed with an aesthetically pleasing lyrical timbre, which is ideal for a romantic listening album. After a 'best of', Christmas and various concert albums, Bocelli and producer David Foster come up with a follow-up to the album Amore. Love is also the main theme on Passione and you can see the singer posing intimately with a long-haired woman on the cover.
Apart from the Italian language, Bocelli sings with equal ease in Spanish, French, English and even Portuguese famous classics such as Perfidia, Tristeza and Garota de Ipanema. He sings a duet with two young ladies: Quizás, Quizás with Jennifer Lopez and Corcovado with Nelly Furtado. La Vie En Rose is an ingeniously arranged virtual duet with the deceased chansonnière Edith Piaf. The songs on the album don't really evoke an atmosphere of sultry passion, but a pleasant feeling of romance or even nostalgia. Most captivating are Bocelli's renditions of Sarà Settembre (C'est En Septembre by Gilbert Becaud) and Era Già Tutto Previsto (by Riccardo Cocciante). (SvdP)more