Alessandro Safina

Alessandro Safina (born October 14, 1963) is an Italian operatic tenor.

Born in Siena, Italy, Safina's love of opera was encouraged early in life by his mother encouraged his eagerness. His father was also a singer. By the age of nine, Safina had decided to devote himself completely to opera. Already, he has performed on stage across Europe in Puccini's La Bohème and Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin.

The early 21st century saw the rise of this Italian singer who has combined his opera roots with modern-day pop music. Late in his teens Safina began to appreciate pop and rock music, drawing inspiration from such bands as Genesis, The Clash, Simple Minds, and U2. Shortly thereafter, he began to combine the opera and pop genres.

In the '90s, Safina was discovered by renowned Italian pianist/composer Romano Musumarra, and the pair quickly began to record together, in an attempt to bring Safina's dream of creating a "soulful new pop opera music" to fruition. The end result was Safina's self-titled debut, issued in September 2001. It contained a single named "Luna", released in 1999, which reached number 2 in the Dutch charts. The song is mainly about a gleaming moon.

In 2001 Safina contributed to the score of Baz Luhrmann’s film Moulin Rouge!. He performed Elton John's Your Song with Ewan McGregor.

In September 2001 his concert Only You was taped in the amphitheatre El Greco in Taormina, Sicily. The concert was later broadcast in the series Great Performances by American public channel PBS and released in 2003 on DVD.

In 2003, Safina performed the English and Korean vocals for a Korean song called Hamangyeon , which was featured as part of the soundtrack for Dae Jang Geum, a popular South Korean historical drama TV series.

Safina appeared in a film Tosca e Altre Due, based on the opera Tosca of Puccini.

In 2007 he recorded a duet with the British Soprano Sarah Brightman for her album "Symphony". He was then invited to join her during her "Symphony World Tour" for Mexico's presentations in November 2008 and in the Asian Tour in march-April 2009. He sang with Sarah the following songs: Canto della Terra, Sarai Qui, The Phantom of the opera.

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