Clearly the "popera" collective had struck a chord with the ladies of the land. The phenomenon that is Il Divo was born.
It took music mogul Simon Cowell two years to find four men with the right mix of make-you-go-wobbly-at-the-knees voices and take-me-to-bed looks for his "man band". Legend - well, Wikipedia - has it that he had the idea to blend pop and opera (hence the term "popera") after hearing Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman's rendition of popera hit Con te partirò. He decided that, if he could ditch the large women with the heaving bosoms, do away with the complicated plotlines and get four hunks to sing songs in Italian (they also sing in Spanish, French and English), he could popularise the opera sound.
He was right. The multinational quartet at last came about in 2003 in the form of rising opera stars Carlos Marín, 39, from Spain; Urs Bühler, 36, from Switzerland; David Miller, 34, from the US; and pop star Sébastien Izambard, 34, from France.
Some industry insiders doubted the appeal of the new group, but they were proved wrong when Il Divo's eponymous debut album went straight to number one in the UK in November 2004 (knocking Robbie Williams off the top spot). The first song from that album - a version of Toni Braxton's Unbreak My Heart sung in Spanish (Regresa a Mi) - endeared them to middle-aged women the world over.
Today the Il Divo boys are sitting pretty, having sold 18 million albums worldwide. To further swell the coffers - or, in music industry speak, in an attempt to "tell their story so far" - they have recently written their autobiographies, in Il Divo: Our Music, Our Journey, Our Words. They're also working on a new album, due for release next year.
When we meet - in a back room at Harrods in London, while crowds gather out front for their book signing - they are in good form, which is a surprise as newspaper reports at the end of their 78-date, 30-country world tour earlier this year hinted at tensions.
There are none to be seen, though, and the foursome - all dressed in sharp black suits, naturally - look relaxed and at ease with one another, seemingly well rested after their two months off.
"Before we had a break we had pretty much spent the last three years working," says tenor Urs, his finely chiselled features still visible despite a healthy application of foundation. "For Il Divo to come from absolutely nothing to the world success that we are nowadays was just incredible. The break has allowed us all to take a step back to reflect - and, looking back, I am able to enjoy every memory of it."
David, the toothy American tenor who speaks in more animated tones than the quiet, thoughtful Urs, agrees with the sentiment. "When you're on tour you just go into survival mode," he says. "You're on the road together, on the same flights together and staying in the same hotels. It's not that we necessarily get sick of each other ... OK, we do," he laughs, "but who wouldn't? Now the fun is back."
What is refreshing about the book - and indeed, the guys themselves when we meet - is that they don't pretend to be anything other than four professional singers creating mass appeal music together. They are not best friends, neither do they want to be. There are no fake confessions of missing each other in the months they spent away with their friends and families (Carlos is married to Spanish wife Geraldine and the other three are in long-term relationships). The truth is that they do not get on all the time, but they're professionals so those differences are put aside on stage, the one place they say they all belong.
"Carlos, David, Sébastien and I obviously didn't choose each other as business partners, and maybe we wouldn't have, had we been involved in the decision," says Urs. "Having become Simon's protégés, we were thrown in at the deep end - or, perhaps I should say, stirred into the melting pot. Four guys who all knew their own minds could have been a recipe for disaster, but, although it has been touch and go sometimes, we have got to know each other and learned how to make the necessary allowances and adjustments.
"For all of us, singing is a great thing and on stage we always work very well, we have developed our own dynamic. When you come from the classical music scene you tend to fall into a certain repertoire where you sing the same pieces, and the same operas. It's nothing like what we do, where it's literally the same songs in the same order every evening for three months. I always thought it would be horrible and so boring, but it's not. Every second that I stand on stage singing I enjoy myself 100 per cent, whether it's in a big arena with 20,000 people or a corporate event for 150 people."
Off stage however, it has been a steep learning curve. Hailing from four different countries, not only were there language and cultural barriers to overcome, but four egos to set aside and four very different personalities to get to know.
"I think the good thing is that we know how to behave around each other now," says baritone Carlos, who looks like a youthful Julio Iglesias, with his dark Spanish locks, deep mahogany tan and neon white smile. "It's sometimes a tough relationship but all we need to do now is look into the eyes of the other one to know how they are feeling, or what they're going to say. It would be boring if we never discussed anything. I love it when we have disagreements because that's part of the business. We're four passionate guys and we love what we're doing."
Tensions of old thus glossed over and the feelgood factor post-holiday firmly in place, you'd think they might be tempted to embellish their relationship a little bit more, but no, when asked who they look to in the group to confide in, they speak truthfully - even if, for fans, the answer may be a little disappointing.
"To be really honest with you, if I have a problem I actually don't go to one of the group," says Sébastien, the baby-faced Frenchman who is newly engaged to Australian Renée Murphy. "We spend 17 hours a day together so I go to someone who has a bit more distance if I need to talk. It's not that I don't trust any of the guys or anything like that - it's that I don't want to bring personal stuff into the band."
"We have a very good business relationship but we try to keep our private lives separate," seconds Carlos.
"It's the only way to stay sane," adds David. "You have to keep the Il Divo world separate from the real world. When you mix the boundaries between personal and professional or personal and public then you have no anchor to hold on to. As much as we can we're very good friends but we just put the music first and we put any issues aside until they resolve themselves, or maybe they don't ..."
While all this honesty and the business-like approach taken by the group displays their maturity (in their thirties, they are old men compared to the teens who inhabit the pop world), this is what displeases some reviewers.
It would seem that many music writers just can't warm to the Il Divo formula. After all, how does this type of test-tube sound production (pluck four raw talents, insert them in a sterile recording studio, shake it up and out pops a new single) tally with "real music" which should be all heart, all soul, all passion? How do they relate to a band with no story, no communal past and whose songs don't come from their shared life experiences of love, loss and heartbreak?
They don't. Instead, they label them as "manufactured" (a dirty word in many music circles) or "crassly commercial" (an even bigger insult in the classical music arena) and move on.
This irks Il Divo, who argue that just because they are a Cowell invention, and just because they offer a toned down version of opera to appeal to the mainstream, they shouldn't be derided.
"We are musicians, we love music and want to make music the best we can," insists Urs. "When you work in opera it's normal to meet your colleagues on the first day of rehearsal - you've probably never seen them before, and when you stop working together, you'll probably never see them again. So the way Il Divo was formed was nothing unusual for three of us. We came together and we were focused on the job, which is to connect with the music and to sing it as beautifully and as passionately as possible."
But while it may be all pats on the back and talk of passion between the boys today, questions about how to build on their success and what new directions to take are never far from the surface. Now that they have all this global fame, wouldn't they like to use it to introduce a pure opera sound to do justice to their training? Are they not tempted to release a truly masterful operatic album to silence their critics?
Well, no, they say, because that is not what Il Divo is about. In fact, according to Sébastien, they're more inclined to try giving a modern rock song the Il Divo touch than anything else.
"We all knew from the start that some in the opera world would not want their art disturbed and that for them it would be like taking the Mona Lisa and dressing her up in a mini-skirt," says David. "Taking a classic work that has stood the test of time for 200 years and trying to remake it in our image is a level of arrogance that even Il Divo doesn't have. Therefore we never touch on the operatic repertoire. We're getting a little bit of pressure to go in that direction; however, we don't feel it's really appropriate.
"What we always try and do, though, is something completely new and I think we're actually doing opera a service. One of the biggest stumbling blocks for people in terms of appreciating opera is getting past the sound of the classical voice. It's very big, it's very expressive, and when foreign words are blowing your hair back and you haven't connected to the meaning of the song, it can seem overwhelming.
"We tone that down and bring classical voices to a mass public who wouldn't necessarily go to see an opera. Each of our songs has a nice progression from a very small emotional place and it blows up into this operatic-ish finale, so you don't feel as if you've been hit over the head with it, but rather go on a journey with the song. We've created a little niche and we're happy with it."
And so, it would seem, are their many legions of female fans.
• Il Divo: Our Music, Our Journey, Our Words is published by Headline, priced £17.99.
Source: Scotsman
