Paul Potts
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| Paul Potts | |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Paul Robert Potts |
| Born | 13 October 1970 , Bristol, England[1] |
| Genre(s) | Classical, Opera |
| Occupation(s) | Tenor (Formerly employed by Carphone Warehouse) |
| Years active | 2007–present |
| Label(s) | Sony BMG |
| Website | Official Website |
Paul Robert Potts (born 13 October 1970, Bristol, England), is a British tenor who in 2007 became the winner of the first series of ITV's Britain's Got Talent, singing an operatic aria, "Nessun Dorma" from Turandot. Potts had worked in unpaid opera productions from 1999 to 2003.
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[edit] Biography
Potts was raised in Fishponds, Bristol, by his father Roland, a bus driver, and mother, Yvonne, a supermarket cashier.[2] He has two brothers and one sister. Potts attended St. Mary Redcliffe school, where he developed his love of singing.[3] He also sang with the choir at Chester Park Junior School and with the choirs at several Bristol churches, including Christ Church.
In the interview that was broadcast before his performance in the semifinal, Potts said that he had been bullied in school, and that experience may have had an influence on his lack of self-confidence. He made a similar remark in 1999 — that his voice had always been a source of solace in the past when bullied.[4]
Potts was on a six-month sabbatical as manager at Carphone Warehouse in Bridgend, a mobile phone store some eight miles from his hometown. On 5 March, 2008, he resigned from his management position via email. [5]
He earned an Honours degree in 1993 from University College Plymouth St Mark & St John, majoring in Humanities, and was a Liberal Democrat councillor in Bristol from 1996 to 2003.[6][7]
[edit] Previous work and experience
Potts first sang opera in 1999 in a karaoke competition, dressed as Luciano Pavarotti.[4] That same year he appeared in the Michael Barrymore talent show My Kind of Music. Although he did not take first place, he won £8,000 — enough to help pay for vocal lessons in Italy, during which he was selected to perform in front of singers Pavarotti and Katia Ricciarelli. He did not however, as was claimed at the time by newspapers such as The Daily Mail and The Sun, receive tuition from Pavarotti.
For the Bath Opera of Bath, Somerset, an amateur company, he performed leading roles on four occasions, after beginning in 1999 in the minor roles of The Prince of Persia and the Herald in Puccini's Turandot: Don Basilio in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro in 2000; Don Carlos in Verdi's Don Carlos in 2001; Don Ottavio in Mozart's Don Giovanni in 2003; and Radames in Verdi's Aida in 2003. [8][9][4] He also performed the role of the Chevalier des Grieux in Puccini's Manon Lescaut for the Southgate Opera Company in London, an amateur company, in May 2003. Additionally, he sang with a small ensemble from the Royal Philharmonic in front of an audience of 15,000 and toured Northern Italy as a soloist as part of his music classes there.[8]
In several interviews, Potts revealed that he performed Aida despite doctors' wishes to remove an adrenal tumor they had discovered during his illness from a burst appendix, and performed Manon Lescaux shortly after the surgery to remove it. Potts broke his collarbone and suffered whiplash in a bicycle accident in 2003, which prevented him from pursuing opera as a career or as an avocation. The mishap and financial difficulties that followed led him to enter the talent show despite not having sung for four years.[10]
[edit] Britain's Got Talent
On 9 June 2007, Potts' audition of Simon Cowell's new search-for-a-star show Britain's Got Talent was televised on ITV1 in the UK. The audition was held at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff on 17 March 2007.[11] Potts sang Giacomo Puccini's "Nessun Dorma," for which he received a standing ovation from the audience of 2,000 people. Contrary to popular belief, Potts did not sing a condensed version of the aria, but rather the full rendition. The editing process did not produce a "perfect" condensation, as one can see his lips getting ready to sing the next line after his second "...Nessun Dorma...", which starts with "Tu pure, o, Principessa...".[12] This performance has been viewed on video upload site YouTube over 25 million times.[13][14]
In the semi-final on 14 June 2007, Potts performed the main verses of "Con te partirò" ("Time to Say Goodbye").[15] He progressed to the final after receiving the highest public vote in that show.[16] He performed "Nessun Dorma" for his finale on 17 June 2007 as well as an encore after he won the competition. Potts defeated co-favourite with the bookmakers, Connie Talbot and received the highest public vote out of two million votes cast to win Britain's Got Talent, winning the right to perform at the Royal Variety Performance on 3 December, 2007, in front of Queen Elizabeth.
In December 2007, Prime Minister Gordon Brown presented Potts with a discography plaque for having sold 2,000,000 copies of his album One Chance and for showing that "Britain really does have huge amounts of talent."[17]
[edit] Recent activity
In the United States, he was profiled on a National Public Radio programme called "Day to Day" on June 15, 2007. On 18 June 2007, a commercial US Television network, NBC, highlighted Potts' victory on its broadcast network's NBC Nightly News and on its Cable news outlet MSNBC. Then on 21 June 2007 he appeared live on NBC's programme Today.
During the programme there was some controversy[18]as to the "undiscovered" nature of Potts' talent. He was portrayed on the show as simply a mobile-phone salesman, whereas he had in fact appeared in six amateur opera productions and in a concert for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra[8] and had plans for a summer tour with the Orchestra.[8] Potts responded to his critics saying that he had not claimed to be completely untutored, that he had never performed any concert for pay and was therefore amateur and that the lessons he had received in Italy had been paid for from his own savings.[19]
On 8 July 2007, Potts performed at a Katherine Jenkins' concert at Margam Park, "Katherine In The Park". Jenkins extended an invitation for him to sing his rendition of "Nessun Dorma" at the concert.[20] On 16 July 2007, his debut album One Chance was released in UK, and on July 22, 2007, the album claimed the number one spot in the UK Album Chart. On 6 November 2007, Potts appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show to perform on a show whose topic was YouTube.[21] On 24 November 2007, Potts was interviewed on the National Public Radio programme Weekend Edition Saturday.
On 13 December, 2007, he performed in Leipzig in the live television broadcast of the 13th annual José Carreras Gala, accompanied by the Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg under the direction of Scott Lawton.[22]
On 17 January, 2008, exactly seven months to the day after winning Britain's Got Talent, he began his 2008 Concert Series at the Pavilion Theatre[23] in Rhyl, Wales, which will be covering 65 cities across 13 countries. His current concert schedule ends on 9 June, 2008, exactly one year after his first appearance on Britain's Got Talent.
[edit] Personal life
Potts has been married since May 2003 to the former Julie-Ann Cooper, whom he met in an Internet chat room. They connected in person for the first time at the Swansea Railway Station in February, 2001. Julie-Ann had the upper hand at this "first meeting" as she had a photograph of Paul, but he had no idea what she looked like.[24]
[edit] Discography
[edit] Albums
| Year | Name | Charts | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| World | UK | IRE | TW | NOR | SWE | CAN | DEN | AU | NZ | COL | HK | SOU | MEX | PER | ESP | NET | USA | BEL | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2007 | One Chance | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 9 | 2 | 23 | 29 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
[edit] Singles
| Year | Single | Album | Chart positions | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UK | TW | IRE | ||||||||||||
| 2007 | "Nessun Dorma" | "One Chance" | - | 2 | - | |||||||||
| Preceded by None |
Winner of Britain's Got Talent 2007 |
Succeeded by George Sampson |
[edit] References
- ^ Biography.
- ^ http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2001320029-2007280255,00.html - Don't Talk out of Your Arias
- ^ http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmedm/70620e01.htm - Early Day Motions
- ^ a b c ITV - Britain's Got Talent - Paul Potts
- ^ Live in concert at Foxwoods Hotel and Casino in Ledyard, CT, 5 March, 2008
- ^ Paul Potts is a Marjon graduate. roadturn.com
- ^ Lib Dems Site Retrieved 22 July 2007
- ^ a b c d Bathopera.co.uk - Don Carlos Biographies
- ^ Bathopera.co.uk - Aida Biographies
- ^ http://forum.unrealitytv.co.uk/index.php?topic=1533.0 Retrieved 30 December 2007
- ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/music/sites/paul_potts/pages/biography.shtml - BBC - Wales Music
- ^ Britain's Got Talent
- ^ Paul Pott’s YouTube Clip Most Highly Rated EVER! - Unreality TV
- ^ Paul Potts sings Nessun Dorma at YouTube
- ^ Paul Potts - Time to Say Goodbye.
- ^ "Semi-final one - the public decides", itv.com, 2007-06-14. Retrieved on 2007-06-15.
- ^ Luciano Pavarotti
- ^ http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2001320029-2007270918,00.html - Controversy from Viewers
- ^ This is my lifelong dream, says the singing salesman The Guardian, 17 June 2007
- ^ "Talent show winner in opera concert", aol.co.uk. Retrieved on 2007-07-09.
- ^ Oprah Winfrey Show, 6 November, 2007.
- ^ [1]
- ^ Paul Potts ∗ Home
- ^ Interview on BBC Radio 2 - 16 July 2007
[edit] External links
- Paul Potts (official website)
- Paul Potts at MySpace
- Paul Potts at Sony BMG
- Paul Potts interview on ITV Local
- Paul Potts interview on The Hour
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