BOCELLI'S RIGHT CROSSOVER TENOR ANDREA HITS THE BIG TIME WITH HIS POPULAR APPROACH TO CLASSICAL MUSIC.

Byline: Fred Shuster Music Writer

From obscure piano-bar crooner to international superstar. No, it's not the latest Billy Joel resurrection.

No way can Joel command 400 bucks for a top seat - even when the Piano Man is attempting Chopin rather than ``It's Still Rock and Roll to Me.'' Especially when he's chomping on Chopin.

Instead, we're talking about Italian super-crooner Andrea Bocelli, the blind tenor who studied piano as a kid, earned a law degree and, love him or hate him, front-loaded a whole lotta opera before spearheading a new pop movement.

Bocelli, 43, is king of the wildly popular genre known as classical crossover. In the format, fueled by the international success of the Three Tenors and gazillion-selling crooners like Russell Watson, Bocelli and his duet partner Sarah Brightman give familiar, tuneful arias by Mozart and Verdi a lush New Age treatment, in effect sprinkling a little Enya on ``Aida.''

The genre also frequently involves Latin love ballads sung as if they were outtakes from the death scene in ``Tosca.''

Some critics bash the results as undistinguished, caloric, crass and overly commercial, but fans, on the other hand, are ecstatic over the phenomenon.

``His music is soothing and he has a beautiful, beautiful voice,'' says superfan Joan Miccolis, 37, of Simi Valley as she waited for the start of a recent Watson concert at the Kodak Theatre. ``I just love him.''

Pop singer, pop songs

Bocelli, who insists there's room for everyone and won't acknowledge a competitive bone in his body towards fellow crossover classical residents, argues that opera was once just plain old pop music, after all.

``It was for the people,'' he said through a translator by phone from Venice, Italy. ``These were songs made for everyone. They told stories and were very, very melodic. Isn't that what pop music is supposed to be?''

At one time perhaps, but opera has attained the veneer of high art and it often seems those involved in the stuff would prefer audience members have a degree from Rigoletto University and know their way around the desert trolly at La Scala.

``If people come to love opera because of something I've sung, that's good,'' Bocelli said. ``But I don't feel that's my business or my goal. In my music, I am just a voice; I am always trying to communicate emotion. My inspiration always comes from the melody.''

He's two things above all: a voice that soars and an extremely effective marketing machine. His albums for Universal Classics' Philips label have sold more than 40 million copies around the world, making him what the label calls the top-selling classical recording artist ever.

In the United States, his popularity is fueled by some especially savvy TV tie-ins along with performances on the Oscars and Grammy telecasts. To help promote his new pop-oriented ``Cieli di Toscana'' (``Tuscan Skies'') disc, the A&E cable network Saturday premieres ``Andrea Bocelli: Tuscan Skies,'' an hour-long special featuring songs from the new record.

Unlike his endlessly repeated PBS-TV concert specials, ``Tuscan Skies'' reveals Bocelli at home on his farm with his two young sons, Amos and Matteo, playing various instruments and performing popular new songs ``Melodrama'' and ``L'Incontro,'' which kicks off with U2's Bono reading a Bocelli-penned poem.

At the same time comes ``The Music of Silence: A Memoir'' (HarperCollins, $25), a 240-page book the singer wrote on a Braille computer without a ghostwriter. According to the memoir, his eyes began to fail as an infant due to glaucoma and he became completely blind after a soccer game accident at the age of 12.

``What I crave most, what I most hope to achieve, is to communicate with the listener, to touch them in the same way I was touched as a child by my favorite singers who made me cry and dream,'' said Bocelli, who appears Friday at Staples Center and Saturday at the Pond in Anaheim.

Scaling the heights

Beloved as a pop singer as well as an operatic tenor with a sensuous lower range, Bocelli made his first record in 1993 and began winning song competitions in Europe soon after. But it was his pop duet with Sarah Brightman, ``Con te Partiro'' (``Time to Say Goodbye''), that launched his career, setting the stage for 1997's ``Romanza,'' a collection of Spanish and Italian ballads that hit the top of the charts in 13 countries.

He's also recorded albums of opera, ``Aria,'' ``Sacred Arias'' and ``Verdi,'' as well as Puccini's ``La Boheme'' and Verdi's ``Requiem.''

Although Bocelli says he lives for opera above all, critics remain unconvinced.

``He has an attractive enough voice but he needs to be miked to be fully effective,'' opines David Mermelstein, director of programming at classical radio KUSC-FM (91.5). ``Authentic, lifelong opera singers don't require microphones and should not be miked.''

Still, to classical music aficionados, Bocelli and his comrades have their uses.

``If he brings people to the appreciation of more sophisticated music, I welcome the opportunities it invites,'' Mermelstein says. ``If listening to him makes some people want to hear a full version of 'La Boheme,' that's excellent.

``How one gets to the goal is less important than actually getting there.''

ANDREA BOCELLI

Where: Staples Center, 1111 S. Figueroa St., Los Angeles.

When: 8 p.m. Friday (and Saturday at the Pond).

Tickets: $85 to $400.

Information: [phone] or www.ticketmaster.com.

``ANDREA BOCELLI: TUSCAN SKIES''

What: Filmed in Italy's hilltop towns, Bocelli performs mostly new songs in this semi-biographical hour-long special.

Where: A&E Network.

When: 9 p.m. Saturday.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Vox populi 

To tenor Andrea Bocelli, critics don't matter, and music is for the people

(2) no caption (ANDREA BOCELLI)