Andrea Bocelli has no plans to retire.
The Italian tenor, 66, insists he will only stop performing if his voice suddenly becomes unable to hit those operatic high notes.
He told PEOPLE: “When I think about retired people, I always think about old men in their sleepers who are sitting on the bench and feeding the pigeons.
“What is for sure, [there] may come a day that my voice will not be the same one, and it wouldn’t be suitable anymore to offer the performance that my audience would expect from me.”
Bocelli has been celebrating his 30th year in music in 2024, releasing the star-studded concert film ‘Andrea Bocelli 30: The Celebration’ in November to mark the occasion.
And the ‘Con te partirò/Time To Say Goodbye’ hitmaker has vowed to keep giving his all until his “very last performance”.
He said of his accomplishments over the past three decades: “The good Lord may keep surprising me, and I will welcome everything.
“Reality has by far exceeded expectations. I’m already very happy and pleased about what I have accomplished, and I will try to give my best until the very last performance that I shall do.”
The film was recorded at Tuscany’s Teatro del Silenzio over three days in the summer, and saw appearances from huge names – including Ed Sheeran, Shania Twain, Jon Batiste, Johnny Depp, Russell Crowe, Sofia Vergara, and David Foster – and the classical star admitted it’s one of few experiences that have truly “moved” him over the years and he is forever “grateful”.
He added: “I am an ex-countryside boy and I’m not easy to be moved. I don’t get emotional so easily.
“However, at the same time, I’m more so used to the fact that I shouldn’t be taking anything for granted.
“So everything that was happening in that fantastic backdrop of the Teatro del Silenzio, which is a piece of a world where I was born and raised, everything would make me feel grateful, grateful to everybody who was there and grateful to the good Lord for the big gift that I was given.”