Giovanni De Sandre
Andrea Bocelli sings at MGM Grand on February 18.
Monday, Feb. 14, 2022 | 2 a.m.
Any regular visitor returning to Las Vegas for the first time during the pandemic is cause enough for celebration. Andrea Bocelli, always an epic draw any time he performs on the Strip, is making his Vegas comeback this week on February 18 at MGM Grand Garden Arena, returning to his annual In Concert For Valentine’s tour.
It will be a special occasion for the iconic tenor beyond the fact that it’s his first Vegas concert in two years. His wife Veronica will be celebrating her birthday that night, and his son Matteo, a rising star recording artist in his own right who just released a new single called “Close,” will be joining Bocelli onstage.
“I honestly believe that his new song is truly powerful, and that Matteo has found his way and his own style,” Bocelli says via email interview. “I am extremely happy about that. When we are then able to have our commitments coincide and share the same stage, it’s always a great joy, great excitement for me.”
Bocelli recently wrapped a 21-city tour supporting the 2020 release of his 17th studio album, “Believe,” a work well-suited for the era of COVID with its underlying themes of faith and hope. He says he was compelled to take listeners on a journey inward during these challenging times, “the need to find one’s own inner dimension.” The album includes some obviously religious music and others that address spirituality in other ways, such as Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”
“I see ‘Believe’ as an incentive to find new optimism, to change our approach toward life, putting in play the values that I personally find in the gospel,” he says.
Last week, Bocelli released the Beijing Winter Olympics-inspired song “Forever You and Me,” a collaboration with internationally acclaimed Chinese pianist Lang Lang and Chinese soprano Lei Jia. The recording was released in partnership with the Olympic organizing committee and the Beijing Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and it’s sung in Chinese and English languages.
“It was an honor to be able to give my modest contribution to the most grand sports event on earth, which takes place in a country that I love and where one third of the world’s population lives,” Bocelli says. “Culture and art at every latitude, is an instrument of mutual understanding and precious support for the development and peace of the world.”
Las Vegas is and always has been one of Bocelli’s favorite places to perform, and he calls it a “great joy” to return to the city even if it’s normally high number of international visitors hasn’t quite returned. Bocelli has fans and followers from every part of the globe.
“I lost count of how many concerts I held throughout the years in your city, a place where I perceive powerful empathy,” he says. “Las Vegas is a city I got to know and appreciate, a place of entertainment, of light-heartedness, but also of great solidarity. A land that is extremely fascinating for its modernity and, conversely, for its surrounding, even proudly wild natural environment.
“I always have Las Vegas concerts at heart, because it’s a place where I have many friends and where the audience’s affection gives me enormous energy every time.”
