They’re amazing stars of the stage in their own right but not necessarily a pairing you might’ve picked, yet Andrea Bocelli and Elton John have done an amazing duet on ‘Circle of Life’ and YouTubers are loving it.
‘Circle of Life’, for those who don’t know it, was written by Elton John and Tim Rice in 1994 for the animated movie The Lion King (it lost out on the Academy Award for best song in that year to ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’, another song from the same film that was also created by John and Rice) and has long been a favourite of musical fans.
But it got very different treatment when Elton John teamed up with beloved Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli on stage at Rome’s iconic Colosseum last September, as part of a seven-day festival of music in the ancient city that was held to raise money for Bocelli’s own foundation as well as the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Centre.
Other stars who performed during the week of events in Rome’s most famous landmarks included Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler, pianist David Foster, country singer Reba McEntire and Motown veteran Smokey Robinson, but few could hold a candle to the stage magic of Elton John and Andrea Bocelli.
And since then, a video of the two performing has attracted almost 60,000 views on YouTube, where fans thanked them for the musical gifts they’d brought to the world. “This song touches the soul,” one viewer said, while another just said, “Beautiful and the end … Bocelli … what a voice … I love them both”.