Il Divo - 18 January 2007 Concert
Il Divo – The Three Tenors Meet The Monkees
Simon Cowell
Simon Cowell, the nasty Brit best known in these parts as the American Idol judge who launches demoralizing insults at those contestants who fall short of his whimsical and ever-changing standards with devastating results, conducted a search for singers to form an operatic pop vocal group styled on The Three Tenors. The result is Il Divo (Italian for “The Divs): Carlos Marín (Spanish), Urs Bühler (Swiss), David Miller (American), and Sébastien Izambard (French).
Il Divo performs in English, Italian, Spanish, French, and Latin.1 In their latest album, The Promise, Il Divo sings Hallelujah in Spanish. In Opera rebels without a cause2 by Deborah Arthur, they note
We sing some of the songs on the album in Spanish – Amazing Grace, for instance. It’s a very suitable language for opera. Though the Italian language of course suits the opera technique, it can sound a bit overcooked. In English, it works, but can sound a bit cheesy. Spanish is the perfect middle ground. It’s less cheesy, and the pronunciation works well with our voices.
While watching the Il Divo video, check out the similarity between the setting of this Hallelujah video by Il Divo …
… and the background of the most popular of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah videos.
I assume it’s only a coincidence that the backdrop of the German talk show whence originated Cohen’s video happened to be a low budget stage emulation of places like the Arena at Pula, which is one of the best preserved Roman coliseums and the location of the Il Divo concert.
Hallelujah – Il Divo
Lyrics: Il DIvo’s Spanish Rendition Of Hallelujah
Un soldado a casa regreso
Y un niño enfermo se curo
Y hoy no hay trabajo en el bosque de la lluvia
Un desamparado se salvo
Por causa de una buena acción
Y hoy ya nadie lo repudia, aleluya!
Aleluya,
Aleluya,
Aleluya,
Aleluya,
Un ateo que consiguió creer
Y un hambriento y tener de comer
Y hoy donaron a una iglesia una fortuna
Que la guerra pronto se acabara
Que en el mundo al fin reinara la paz
Que no habrá miseria alguna, aleluya!
Aleluya,
Aleluya,
Aleluya,
Aleluya,
Porque la norma sea el amor
Y no gobierne la cruzión sino
Lo bueno y lo mejor del alma pura
Porque Dios nos proteja de un mal final
Porque un día podamos estar de en tal
Porque acaben un día con tanta furia, aleluya!
Aleluya,
Aleluya,
Aleluya,
Aleluya,
Aleluya,
Aleluya
- Accordingly, Wikipedia reports that “Il Divo was named the Most Multinational UK No.1 Album Group in the 2006 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records.” Wikipedia goes on to report, somewhat more opaquely, that “A star located in the Ursa Major constellation located at RA11h39m35.62s DEC+37.27479 MAG11.02. has been named ‘Il Divo’ after this musical quartet.”↩
- Daily Mail 14 Nov 2008↩
Not bad at all, although it certainly lacks the tragedy of the original. I went to a Dresden Dolls show in Hollywood a few years back where they covered “Hallelujah” and I was really impressed with the despair in Amanda Palmer’s voice. It was a brilliant interpretation.