Do we like Andrea Bocelli?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Decent, charitable and graceful in public, with a few contested moments: the 2020 Covid remarks (apologised for), the Domingo comments and the Israel boycott calls.
Bocelli is the Tuscan tenor who took opera to pop audiences. By one 2024 profile he has sold more than 90 million albums, with 1997's Romanza the biggest-selling album by an Italian solo artist. He was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010.
The stoush making headlines now is about Israel. Pro-Palestinian groups, including the BDS movement in Jordan, want his Petra concert cancelled, citing his 2022 Tel Aviv show and a 2010 Los Angeles fundraiser for a group supporting the IDF. Indonesia's Ulema Council wants his 31 October and 3 November shows pulled, and local police withdrew a permit recommendation for the Borobudur gig. Where you land depends on whether you read playing those gigs as music for everyone or as taking a side; we found no statement from him either way.
The harm check turns up little. In 2020 he said he knew no one who had been in intensive care and urged people to disobey rules. He then apologised, saying it was not his intention to offend those who had been struck by Covid. In 2019 he called it absurd that opera houses cancelled Plácido Domingo over alleged sexual harassment before any investigation finished. That defence is the sort of thing that rubs people the wrong way, though he said moral judgment was for the courts.
On politics, he sang for Donald Trump in the Oval Office in October 2025, and Trump announced he'd be back at the White House on 5 December. That's a performance, not a policy position, and we found no words of his on Trump's agenda, LGBTQ+ rights or climate. Still, a few of our readers will wince at the photo.
The good stuff is real. The Andrea Bocelli Foundation, founded in 2011, has raised over 70 million euros and built 12 schools in Italy and Haiti, according to Forbes Italia. In 2024 it was set to receive a 100,000 dollar contribution for Haiti schools through an inclusion award, and he said he has always prioritised giving a voice to the voiceless.
He also handled this year's Timothée Chalamet opera row with class. Instead of dunking, he told People he'd be happy to welcome Chalamet to one of his concerts, and suggested opera and dance draw from the same source. That's the register of a bloke who's been famous a long time without getting mean.