Interview: Andrea Bocelli, opera singer

The sea is calm. A 15-minute walk from the glossy town centre, past the quiet fish restaurants and pizzerias along the esplanade, a house looms on the corner behind a high fence and electronic gates. Only the eyes of the house, the upper windows, which are lit by small chandeliers, peer over the fence. Checking the directions, it must surely be Andrea Bocelli's house, though darkness has fallen now and it's hard to confirm that it is pink. But standing on the pavement beside a stretch of high bamboo-cane fence, I feel confident that I can leave and find it again in the morning for the interview, that this really is the world-renowned singer's house. Stop, listen. The identifying feature. Music thumps like a distant heart beat from its centre, out into the world outside.

Next morning, the dimmer-switch of Tuscany sunshine has been turned up full on upmarket Forte dei Marmi, with its Dolce & Gabbana and Versace shops and plethora of hotels. The electronic gates of the pink corner house open slowly. Bocelli's partner Veronica Berti, who is also chief executive of his management company, leads me into the foyer of the house, a big, light, open space in creamy pastels, with a seating area and vases of orange flowers. It used to be a small, famous hotel, this place. The gleaming black of a grand piano is just visible, peeking round the corner from the chairs.

Bocelli is led in, unsmiling. "I have a cold," he says, with that mixture of vulnerability and woebegone sullenness often found in small boys when they are ill and unhappy. But a cold perhaps underestimates it. A week ago he had to cancel his Birmingham concert due to bronchitis, and he is still clearly suffering.

There is an interpreter here to help with translation. Two obstacles to overcome: language difficulties that may hamper understanding; and blindness that may prevent all the non-verbal connections we instinctively make and take for granted, like eye-contact and smiles. Except Bocelli does not accept blindness as an obstacle to anything. His was caused mainly by congenital glaucoma when he was a child, but any remaining sight was destroyed in a football accident when he was 12 years old. The ball hit his head and caused internal haemorrhaging. His sight, I am told in advance, is the one thing he won't talk about.

He refuses to be defined as the blind opera singer because his musical achievements are not limited by his lack of sight. Bocelli has sold more than 60 million albums worldwide. His signature song, Time To Say Goodbye, was a worldwide number-one hit and his 1999 album, Sacred Arias, sold more than any other classical album by a solo artist. He earned a place in the Guinness Book Of Records for claiming the first, second and third places in the American classical charts and holding on to them for an astonishing three years. The people love him. The critics, less so.

Italian opera tenor Andrea Bocelli arrives on horseback for the annual concert at the Theatre of the Silence on July 18 this year

It is right he should not be defined by blindness. But of course it is relevant to an artist of any kind. How does not seeing the world affect your creative imagination? How does it affect the way you interpret your art? Bocelli blows his nose. "I saw, like you, for a time and then, when I stopped seeing, nothing changed. I kept on seeing in a different way." He quotes the words of the French writer Antoine de Saint Exupery. "The essential is invisible to the eye. That is so obvious that it is perhaps a little bit stupid." But then he says he is not interested in this subject. Why? What goes on inside someone's head is the most fascinating thing in the world. It's what distinguishes each of us from the person standing beside us.

Let's ask the question in a different way. What does he imagine when he sings? "When I sing, I think mostly about the music. But I know that, through singing, my body shows everything that I am. I am a very passionate man and I suffer a lot and have a lot of joy also. In my opinion, it is very important for me to find this stimulus and motivation for singing."

What causes him to suffer? "Just small things. You don't need big dramas. I suffer if I see a dog alone in the street. When in some part of the world I see children alone on the street, I suffer. I suffer if my relationship with my partner or friend does not work."

He is certainly drawn to beauty. "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."

That is partly what the public responds to in Bocelli's voice. His tone is generally regarded as very beautiful, his pitch secure. But he came to classical training late in his life and was virtually unknown up to the age of 34. Critics complain about the thinness of his voice, the faulty breathing and wayward phrasing. He needs a microphone, one opera singer tells me. But the public cares less about such things than opera buffs.