When you're insecure about your technique, you close yourself off. Your shoulders tighten. The first thing, you should open your body and sing. Be happy. Sing real vowels, real Italian vowels. When you're learning a good way to sing technically, you find it's very easy to sing well.

I quit my job in the bank when I was 19. I took a chance. I went to Milan to study opera and singing. My father really supported me economically.

I learned my profession onstage. I didn't have a musical background. I had no conservatory training. I don't play an instrument.

Sicily is a blessed land. First, because of its geographic position in the Mediterranean. Second, for its history and all the different peoples who have settled there: Arabs, Greeks, Normans, the Swedes. That has made us different from others. We exaggerate, we overdo. We love Greek tragedy. We cry, we fight, sometimes for nothing.