Every summer, the sleepy Provençal town of Orange looks back to its glorious past with an open-air opera festival in the best-preserved Roman theatre in Europe, seating around 9000 people in front of what Louis XIV described as ‘the finest wall in my kingdom’. The new Chorégies d’Orange began in 1971 with legendary performances now available on DVD including Caballé’s extraordinary Norma and Vickers and Nilsson under Böhm in a searing Tristan und Isolde.

This year’s festival began with a performance of Puccini’s La bohème starring Vittorio Grigolo, Inva Mula, Nicola Beller Carbone and Ludovic Tézier under the baton of Myung-Whun Chung in a production by Nadine Duffaut, but Orange is not the place to see cutting-edge dramatic productions; the emphasis is on popular operatic celebration in a similar style to Italy’s Verona.

In the space of a few years, tenor Vittorio Grigolo has become a festival favourite with triumphant appearances in La traviata and Rigoletto. Born in Arezzo but brought up in Rome, the little Grigolo was snapped up as a child for the Sistine chapel choir and at the age of 12 sang the shepherd boy in Tosca in Rome with Luciano Pavarotti, earning him the nickname ‘Il Pavarottino’. Since then, he has pursued a career of burgeoning success, both on stage and in concert. The term ‘crossover’ does not do justice to a career dedicated to music in all its forms for the widest possible public.

We met up in the scented gardens of his secluded hotel in Villeneuve-lèz-Avignon which was the base for the tenor and his glamorous Iranian wife during their stay in the region. I was anxious to know about the special problems the Roman theatre posed. ‘It is always difficult to approach performing on such a large stage at an institution like the Chorégies d’Orange with its incredible history and all the great singers of the past,’ Grigolo says, looking sleepy but relaxed. ‘Singers need to be ready to fight against natural forces, like wind and dust. We are bringing opera outdoors in a space which has no conventional structure for opera. We have to thank the Romans for the acoustic which makes it all possible. It’s amazing on stage when you feel the acoustic; you don’t need to push the voice. Singers are always trying to find the best spot, which sometimes depends on the designer, when the sound projects well off the set. You have to find the best solution to feel comfortable on stage.’

What had been remarkable about his performance in Bohème the night before was not just his sappy Italianate timbre, but the physical freedom and gangling student innocence Grigolo found in the role of Rodolfo. ‘I always try to imagine him as a young kid. In three hours he has to grow up so fast, passing through a whole gamut of emotions. He starts out as a very joyful character with no cares, but love complicates things – it’s a "coup de foudre", love at first sight. Suddenly you discover your loved one is sick…All this in just three hours.’

Duffaut’s production, which travels next month to Korea with the tenor and Angela Gheorghiu, had not been without its moments of controversy. Rodolfo failed to grab Mimi’s frozen hand on Puccini’s orchestral cue, and Mimi strangely disappeared under the stage when she died, presumably to underline Rodolfo’s isolation. Grigolo looked thoughtful when I asked him about this, but came up with an intelligent explanation for his playing of the aria. ‘I talked with Maestro Chung about this,’ he said. ‘My feeling is that the orchestral note is more a feeling of two bodies suddenly connecting and not just for Rodolfo to grab Mimi’s hand. You have to feel the pressure and tension between two bodies and to feel that something serious is going to happen…’

Our conversation turned to Grigolo’s work in the studio and the success of his last album ‘Arrivederci’. ‘Some people didn’t know how to classify “Arrivederci”,’ he admitted. ‘It’s a mix of beautiful operatic arias and traditional Italian songs. It’s not a crossover album. When I put it together I wanted to grab the attention of the largest number of people, not only opera fans. Sometimes people go to a restaurant, hear a song they recognise and ask who the singer is, that way they discover other beautiful operatic arias. We always need to find a new public. “Arrivederci” was also a way to say goodbye to romantic times when behaviour was different. We will never touch the hand of a girl now and say "Che gelida manina”, we will just text her. The problem today is that we have a lack of real communication - 30 or 40 years ago we were using richer vocabulary.”

Grigolo continues: 'In October, my new album “Ave Maria” will be released. My background as a child was in the choir of the Sistine chapel. I spent a week trying to find the music of the songs I sang there as a kid, but it was very difficult and I had to rewrite some of the arrangements myself. It is wonderful to share this music, some of which has never been recorded. It’s a sacred album, contemporary sacred, not only “Panis Angelicus” and what you expect from a tenor. It has an appealing new fragrance with “Ave Marias” that nobody has ever heard – not just Gounod and Schubert. I even sang a couple pieces with the boys of the Sistine chapel and I think it will be great surprise.'

I was keen to know if he had enjoyed working on Rigoletto with Sir John Eliot Gardiner at Covent Garden – two strong characters that one might imagine to be a slightly combustible pairing. But Grigolo was generous in his praise for the maestro. 'We had different opinions about the music of course but that’s normal – we are all different, and the beauty of artists is to keep the car on the road, so in the end we found the right petrol! It was a great production by David McVicar who always surprises people. The orgy was really strong – incredible.' I was able to tell Grigolo that McVicar had been recently knighted, and he immediately reached for his mobile to text his congratulations. With an irresistible smile, he enquired as to whether, as he now lived in London, he might become ‘Sir Vittorio’ – an idea which prompted a childlike glow of pleasure from the tenor, as did my mention of his legendary love of speed. ‘I love everything which is fast. I am always on the edge. At the moment I have a Mini Cooper, my beloved Porsche, my motorbikes – and I need a bicycle in London.’ So next time you see a handsome Italian tenor peddling his way around Chelsea at dangerous speed, do not be surprised if his name is Vittorio Grigolo.