Paul Potts

Paul Potts (born 1970 in Bristol, England), from Port Talbot in South Wales, is a singer who became the winner of the first series of ITV's Britain's Got Talent, singing operatic arias and impressing the judges in all of his performances. At the time of his victory on Britain's Got Talent, he had been working in The Carphone Warehouse, but following his win he has been signed by the show's judge Simon Cowell to record an album. Potts has previously worked in unpaid opera productions from 1999 to 2003, however, illness in 2003 brought an end to his amateur opera career On June 9, 2007, Potts' audition of Simon Cowell's new search-for-a-star show Britain's Got Talent was televised on ITV in UK. The actual audition was held at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff on March 17, 2007. Paul sang a condensed version of Giacomo Puccini's "Nessun dorma", which impressed the judges and received a standing ovation from the audience of 2,000 people. Potts' rendition of this has currently been viewed on video upload site YouTube tens of millions of times and exists among Youtube's all-time most viewed videos. In the semi-final on June 14, 2007, Potts performed main verses of "Con te partirò" with praise from the audience and judges. He progressed to the final after receiving the highest public vote in that show. He performed a full-length "Nessun dorma" for his final on June 17, 2007 as well as an encore after he won the competition. Potts defeated co-favourite with the bookmakers, Connie Talbot and received the highest public vote out of 2 million votes cast to win Britain's Got Talent, winning the chance to perform at Royal Variety Performance in front of the Queen. In the United States, he was profiled on a National Public Radio programme called "Day to Day" on Friday June 15, 2007. NPR is a non-commercial network that reaches several million people every day in the U.S. On Monday, June 18, 2007, a commercial US Television network, NBC, highlighted Potts's victory on its broadcast network's NBC Nightly News and on its Cable news outlet MSNBC. Then on Thursday, June 21, 2007 he appeared live on NBC's programme Today. On July 8, 2007, Potts performed at a Katherine Jenkins' concert at Margam Park, "Katherine In The Park". Jenkins extended an invitation for him to sing his rendition of "Nessun Dorma" at the concert. Passione, his second album, was released in 2009. Potts spent nearly a year recording Passione in Prague and Stockholm.