Paul Potts

Paul Potts

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 appeared in amateur opera productions from 1999 to 2003.

Biography

Potts was raised in Fishponds, Bristol, by his father Roland, a bus driver, and mother, Yvonne, a supermarket cashier. He has two brothers and one sister. Potts attended St. Mary Redcliffe school, where he developed his love of singing. 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.

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.

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.

Previous work and experience

Potts first sang opera in 1999 in a karaoke competition, dressed as Luciano Pavarotti. 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. 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.

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 Lescaut 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 Britain's Got Talent despite not having sung for four years.

Britain's Got Talent

On 9 June 2007, Potts' audition for 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. 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...". This performance has been viewed on video upload site YouTube over 30 million times.

In the semi-final on 14 June, 2007, Potts performed the main verses of "Con te partirò" ("Time to Say Goodbye"). He progressed to the final after receiving the highest public vote in that show. 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 percentage of two million votes cast to win Britain's Got Talent, and the chance to perform at the Royal Variety Performance on 3 December 2007, in front of Queen Elizabeth.

Post-Talent Career

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 controversyas 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 and had plans for a summer tour with that Orchestra. 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.

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. 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. On 24 November 2007, Potts was interviewed on the National Public Radio programme Weekend Edition Saturday.

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."

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. 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 in Rhyl, Wales, which covered 65 cities across 13 countries and ended on 9 June, 2008, exactly one year after his first appearance on Britain's Got Talent. Potts performed at three outdoor classical music concerts in Swedish castles with the Finnish violinist Linda Lampenius and the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. The concerts took place on 24 July at Sofiero Palace in Helsingborg, on 25 July at Sundbyholms Castle in Eskilstuna and at Slottskogsvallen in Göteborg on 26 July. On 15 August, 2008 he performed before the German soccer match Bayern Munich - Hamburger SV in front of 70,000 visitors.

Since July 2008 the appearance from Britain's Got talent is used in a commercial for Deutsche Telekom.

Personal life

Potts has been married since May 2003 to Julie-Ann (née 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. She had the upper hand at this "first meeting" as she had a photograph of Potts, but he had no idea what she looked like.

Discography

Albums

Year	Name	Charts
		World	UK	IRE	TW	NOR	SWE	CAN	DEN	AU	NZ	COL	HK	SOU	MEX	GER	NET	PER	ESP	USA	BEL
2007	One Chance	4	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	2	3	9	23	29

Singles

Year	Single	Album	Chart positions
			UK	TW	IRE	GER
2007	"Nessun Dorma"	"One Chance"	-	2	-	3

External links

• Paul Potts (official website)
• Template:Myspace
• Paul Potts at Sony BMG
• Paul Potts interview on ITV Local
• Paul Potts interview on The Hour