Updated 6.10pm with comments
An album featuring Joseph Calleja singing the music of the Golden Age has topped Amazon UK’s opera charts.
The album The Magic of Mantovani beat Russel Watson's 20 and a recording of Mozart's Mass in C minor to the top spot.
"I have to wait for the official UK opera charts, but hopefully this is a good indicator that it's made it to the top there too. So fingers crossed," Calleja told Times of Malta.
In the album, the Maltese tenor brings back to life original Decca recordings of works by the celebrated Anglo-Italian conductor and his orchestra, such as Spanish Eyes, Strangers in the Night, Che Sera Sera, You'll Never Walk Alone and Arrivederci Roma.
"What's really incredible is that the tracks I sang on, which in our terminology we call tracking, were recorded 50 to 55 years ago. His musical interpretation before I was even born – actually 28 years before – coincided with my musical interpretation/feeling for the pieces. It could have worked, it could have not, but luckily it did," Calleja explained.
Mantovani is considered the most successful album artist before the Beatles. He sold in excess of 60 million records and was the first artist to sell one million stereo records worldwide. He accompanied Vera Lynn on the 1942 Decca recording of The White Cliffs of Dover and had 40 albums in the US pop charts, with 27 reaching the top 40 and 11 in the top 10; and had two UK No. 1 singles, including Cara Mia.
Among other popular recordings of his works are those of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, What a Wonderful World, Sunrise, Sunset, The Anniversary Waltz, In the Still of the Night, Once Upon a Time and Embraceable You.
"He was known for the opulence of his sound, cascading strings and the easy listening of his numbers. He was a very accomplished musician," Calleja said, adding that Mantovani's father served as the concertmaster of La Scala opera house's orchestra in Milan, under the baton of Arturo Toscanini.
Calleja finds fascinating the fact that Mantovani and his orchestra often performed before royals and the elite society at the Metropole Hotel in London, now the Corintha London Hotel, and that he performed a couple of concerts himself at the same venue. He appreciates the Maltese connection, since Corinthia Hotels International is based in Malta.
The tenor, who has increasingly gained international success on the world opera stage, revealed that he might perform more of Mantovani's repetoire in future.
"It was absolutely my first time singing Mantovani, but considering the album's success, I don't think it will be the last," the tenor said.