When the mood takes me, I like to be a man of action. I like to windsurf and ski, and most of all I love to ride horses. The wilder and faster the better!

My style in Italian is very old-style.

Some of us are born with a weakness for music. As a baby, music would stop whatever thought I was having. If I was worried, it would stop me worrying; if I was crying, it would stop me crying. Music was a healing thing for me.

What is beautiful enchants me. I mean not just physical beauty but a wider concept of beauty. There is beauty in poetry and in great musical or singing performances. There is beauty everywhere if you can just see it.

The most widely criticised singers in the history of opera, Maria Callas and Franco Corelli, happen also to be the best singers. I am honoured for being part of their group.

When a little more than a teenager, I was a piano-bar pianist in the land where I was born and raised, Tuscany.

I change the language with which I use my voice. In opera, I know I have an orchestra behind me; I have to communicate to people very far from me.