BocelliOnline

[Melodie]

A $500,000-plus performance

Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli brings his golden voice - and a pricey ticket - to the Ferguson Center for the Arts in Newport News on Thursday.
BY DAVID NICHOLSON
247-4794
October 19, 2005
NEWPORT NEWS -- William "Bill" Biddle heard the name "Andrea Bocelli" even before he landed the job as executive director of the Ferguson Center for the Arts. It came up during his job interview in November 2003 when city and college officials told him they wanted to bring international artists to the new Christopher Newport University performing arts center.

As Biddle recalls it, and Newport News Mayor Joe Frank remembers it as well, someone at the meeting suggested, "You need someone like Andrea Bocelli for your opening."

"I told them what his cost was, and what we needed to charge - and they said 'OK,' " says Biddle. "That kind of thinking out of the box was what convinced me to come here."

Five years ago, no one would have predicted that one of the world's best-known tenors - and one of the most expensive - would be performing in Newport News.

Or that the concert - with tickets in the $175 to $300 range - would be a sellout.

Or that Newport News is the only place in the coming months to hear Bocelli in a solo recital in an intimate setting. The Italian tenor's other upcoming gigs are "A Royal Christmas" holiday shows at arenas in Washington, D.C., New York and other locations. His last U.S. appearance was in Last Vegas nearly a year ago.

Bocelli, 46 and blind since age 12, is riding the tenor tidal wave of popularity begun by superstars Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo. He doesn't make many appearances in the United States, but millions know his voice through opera and pop recordings and television appearances. His first eight albums sold more than 40 million copies. Critics have not always embraced his opera recordings - he's been called "overrated," "inadequate to the task" and "vocally deficient" by some - but his recordings of Italian songs and sacred music have been well received. Fans, and there are a zillion of them, adore him.

Phyllis Hunter, a Hampton Roads singer and vocal teacher, calls his voice "small but very pretty."

"It's a wonderful thing that he's bringing classical music into the public eye," she says. "And our culture seems ready to receive it. Maybe the baby boomers are carrying on that tradition."

Bocelli's appeal doesn't mean Biddle wasn't sweating it when the tenor finally agreed to come.

"He's a half-million-dollar show, and that's not the type of show you usually bring to a 1,700-seat auditorium," says Biddle.

Biddle can't reveal Bocelli's fee - the singer's contract forbids it - but says it's in the $500,000-$1,000,000 range, and the Ferguson is paying on the lower end of that. That's before you add in the cost of renting a symphony orchestra and other expenses. But since the concert was announced, more than $400,000 in tickets sold and the Ferguson Corp. has come through with a major underwriting gift. So the concert is more than paid for, Biddle reports, and no university or state funds were used.

HELP FROM THE NET

Like other presenters these days, Biddle is helped by the Internet.

A Web site operated by Bocelli fans has been filing almost daily reports on the availability of tickets to the Newport News concert. The Ferguson Center sells tickets through Ticketmaster, and the Bocelli date was posted on its Web sites from New York to Atlanta. There are fans coming from both cities to hear him, but most of the tickets were bought locally.

"We've seen that with a number of our shows," says Biddle, who tracks ticket buying by ZIP code. "We're doing better on the Southside and North Carolina than we anticipated. It was actually surprising to see the number of ticket-buyers from Chesapeake and Suffolk."

Biddle had hoped to open the new Ferguson concert hall with Bocelli on Sept. 12 (Michael Crawford and the New York Pops came instead). Getting him here took more than a year of persistence. Bocelli usually plays 20,000-seat arenas like Madison Square Garden, and the agents and promoters who manage him don't readily respond to presenters from 1,700-seat halls like the Ferguson they've never heard of. In the end, Biddle had to Fed-Ex a check for Bocelli's entire fee before they'd agree for him to come.

As early as July 2004, Biddle started e-mailing and calling the singer's representatives. During the course of negotiations, Bocelli changed management firms. At one point, Biddle was asked for specs on the new Ferguson Center, and he believes the I.M. Pei-designed facility might have worked in his favor.

By April, Biddle had received a tentative commitment and he felt confident enough to announce the appearance to a group of Ferguson Center donors.

Deciding on a concert date proved almost as difficult. Bocelli couldn't come for the opening but was available in mid-October. Unfortunately the Virginia Symphony players were in Fairfax performing with the Virginia Opera that weekend. Biddle looked into hiring the Baltimore Symphony, Richmond Symphony or the Charlotte Symphony - he got a commitment from Charlotte - but eventually he was able to secure Thursday's date.

Bocelli was scheduled to tape a television special with Olympic skater Kurt Browning on Tuesday in Toronto, then fly to Newport News by private plane Tuesday night. He reportedly is bringing an entourage of about 20 musicians, technical staff and friends. His conductor, Marcello Rota, who primarily conducts Italian opera in Europe, is coming in by limousine from Washington, D.C.

DUETS INCLUDED

His program of Italian songs and opera arias will include duets with Eugenia Garza, a young Mexican-born soprano who was chosen for Washington Opera's young artists program three years ago and has since sung in recital with Domingo. Bocelli will use a small amount of amplification, though the orchestra will not be miked.

Presenters will tell you that the most expensive tickets usually go first when someone like Bocelli comes to town. Surprisingly, it was the $175 tickets that sold early, says Biddle. Over the years, Biddle has learned that people who live in predominantly blue-collar regions like Southeast Virginia tend to buy tickets in the last two weeks before a performance. Last week, the Ferguson box office sold 264 tickets in one day for Opera Verdi's performance of "The Barber of Seville" coming up this Saturday.

The Ferguson's "cheap" seats for Bocelli compare with the more expensive seats at the arenas where he is performing. The ticket price range for "A Royal Christmas" at Madison Square Garden is $64-$194, but the National Italian-American Foundation, an organization Bocelli supports, is selling premium seats for these events at $500 per ticket. As many as 110 CNU students were lucky enough to buy $30 tickets to Bocelli, something the university is doing for all Ferguson concerts.

"The whole Bocelli thing fits in with what we're trying to do here," says Biddle. "We want to be a regional facility that will bring in artists you wouldn't typically see, so I don't think the ticket prices are too much.

"Can we do five or six events like this a year? No. But I think there's a market for us to do two or three."

http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-01367sy0oct19,0,2395616.story?track=mostemailedlink