I love eating shabu-shabu in Japan - a kind of beef hotpot. But if you're talking about authentic, traditional food, then Italian cooking is one of the best in the world.

A career is like a house: it's made of many bricks, and each brick has the same value, because without any one of them, the house would collapse.

Probably the first time I left Italy was to travel by train to Lourdes. I went with my mother and my grandmother - who was a very religious person - so it was a pilgrimage of sorts. I remember it as a very intense, but beautiful experience.

When I hear that young people have come to the theater for the first time to listen to opera, I'm very happy. Because it's the same thing that happened to me as a child. When I first heard the tenor voice, I immediately fell in love with this kind of music.

Apart from a period of crisis during my adolescence, when my voice was changing and I could not tame it - it was like a kicking foal that does not listen to reason - I have always been told I have a pleasant and recognizable voice.

When you sing and people want that you sing, then you can hope to be great.

To sing opera, one needs two things: the voice and the passion - and above all, the passion.