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.

I don't like being called 'macho.' Macho basically means stupid and a real Italian man is not macho, he's smart. That's smart in both senses: elegant and clever.

Losing my sight had nothing to do with my focus on music. My passion for music was already there, so it would be a mistake to give too much significance to my blindness.

I have always tried to perform the music I love, and I think I am lucky because my preferences are often the ones of the public.

I listen to music every day for study reasons, and I confess that I have very little knowledge of what is going on in the hit parades around the world. I have no prejudices for any kind of music genre, and I listen with pleasure to many songs on the radio that my children already know of by heart, while I hear them practically for the first time.

Listen to what others tell you about your voice. If you're only singing to please yourself, you might as well just sing under the shower. But if you're singing for others, you are reliant on them to ask you to sing.

More people are listening to opera, and I'm happy - everybody must be given that opportunity.