Susan Boyle isn’t the first, Paul Potts blew them away

Rewind to June 2007 and Paul Potts aces Nessun Dorma

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, April 20, 2009

Simon and judges were equally shocked almost two years ago with a mobile phone salesman from Cardiff Wales, Paul Potts stepped up to the microphone. Potts loves opera and it shows. He aces the Pavarotti standard from Puccini opera Turandot. Pavarotti made this short excerpt from Turandot his calling card, the last song of every gala performance.

For copyright buff’s, Turandot was not the Puccini best outing. It opened in 1926 when Puccini was living a grand lifestyle off the royalties from earlier opera’s. The hunger that created La bohème and Tosca was long gone. Something to be said for hungry young artists versus older and more comfortable artists who live off their name not their artistry.

Here’s Paul Potts –
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DelJrP3P7tA

Potts has gone on to record a CD and has his second one in the works. 60 million people watched the video on YouTube. The one we are allowed to show is not the highest quality.

Some amazingly talented people do not make it to the top without programs like “One Chance” and “American Idol”. When I was a child in Halifax, an Italian grocer on Chebucto Road sang opera in his home on Sunday afternoons. I can remember parking on the street to hear him on warm summer days asking my father why he was not singing for a living. I thought he was a great opera singer. Success in the music business is about more than talent. However, the internet and TV shows can level the playing field.

To get a comparison with a real opera singer, the late Pavarotti sings a real opera performance of the same song. Potts is operatic but not a professional opera singer.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VATmgtmR5o4