by Cami

My husband, daughter, and I attended the concert in Worcester, and I have been mulling over what I could contribute that hasn't been said already. Yes, there is no doubt that Andrea's voice has grown...more elegant, more confident, more beautiful. He definitely seemed in command in a way I hadn't seen before. I keep wondering what he has done since Detroit. Something there seemed to be holding him back. But not this time!

I was bowled over by the ease with which he makes that transition from opera-Andrea to (for lack of a better term) pop-Andrea. It is almost as if he is two singers, each stunningly beautiful in their own way. Just when you think you can't be any more impressed with this voice, he steps into another world and owns that one as well. I thought I knew "Sogno," but when he began to sing it for the first encore my jaw just dropped open it was so...beautiful (someone please find me another word, I keep repeating this one, but language is failing me). The same for "The Prayer."

When he started to sing "The Merry Widow Waltz" I had the binoculars up and was watching Ana Maria Martinez. You wouldn't think you could surprise anyone with that ever-so-familiar tune...but again I was stunned by the beauty. Apparently so was Ana Maria, because I could swear her eyes filled with tears as she watched him sing. I really was afraid she was going to cry and be unable to sing when her cue came.

Did anyone else at the Worcester concert notice him moving his left foot backward as if he was searching for something? I watched him do it several times. It would make sense for him to be searching forward with his right foot for the mark, which he does. But this was something I hadn't noticed before. We decided afterward that he might have been concerned about the strength in his voice being too much for the microphone and was finding a good range in relation to the mike.

This was our third concert and we saw Werther twice...he is definitely on another level. I really believe that if he wants it, he will be a legend in his own time. What a thrill to have been there from almost the beginning, and we aren't done yet!