In 1992, Italian rock star Zucchero held auditions for tenors to make a demo tape with of the song Miserere from his album of the same name, to send to Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti. After hearing Bocelli on tape, Pavarotti urged Zucchero to use Bocelli instead of him. The demo tape was from Caterina Caselli, who had discovered Bocelli. Caselli is Bocelli's current manager and producer.
Zucchero eventually persuaded Pavarotti to record the song with him and it became a hit throughout Europe. In Zucchero's European concert tour in 1993, it was Bocelli who accompanied him to sing the duet and he was also given solo sets in the concerts, singing "Nessun Dorma" from Puccini's Turandot.[27] Bocelli signed with the Sugar Music label in Milan after the group's president heard Bocelli sing Miserere and "Nessun Dorma" at a birthday party for Zucchero.
In December Bocelli entered the preliminary round of the Sanremo Music Festival in the category of Giovani, performing both parts of the duet Miserere. He won the preliminary competition with the highest marks ever recorded in the Newcomers section. On 28 December, he debuted in the classical world in a concert at the Teatro Romolo Valli in Reggio Emilia.[27]
In February 1994 he entered the main Sanremo Festival competition with "Il mare calmo della sera", and he won the "Newcomers" section, again with a record score. His debut album, of the same name, was released and immediately entered the Italian Top Ten, going platinum within weeks.[27]
In May he toured with Italian pop singer Gerardina Trovato.[27] In September he sang at Pavarotti's annual Charity Gala concert, Pavarotti International in Modena, where he sang Ruggero Leoncavallo's "Mattinata" and sang a duet with Pavarotti, Maurizio Morante's Notte e Piscatore. He also sang "Libiamo ne' lieti calici" from Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata in the finale, along with Nancy Gustafson,Giorgia, Andreas Vollenweider and Bryan Adams; and also Adams' song All for Love.[27]
In September he made his opera debut as Macduff in Verdi's Macbeth at the Teatro Verdi in Pisa.[28] Bocelli had been an agnostic, but around 1994, partly as a result of immersing himself in the works of Tolstoy, he returned to the practice of the Catholic faith.[29] He performed the hymn, Adeste Fideles in Rome before Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Basilica at Christmas.[27]
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