Spanish tenor Placido Domingo has made an album of songs based on poems written by late Pope John Paul II.The album, 'Infinite Love', will be presented in the Vatican next Friday.
It reportedly features 12 songs including Domingo performing duets with US gospel singer Vanessa Williams and with his son Placido Domingo Jr.
Published by German record label Deutsche Grammophon, it is expected to go on sale in Italy on the same day as the presentation in the Vatican.
Domingo, 67, has said the poems by the pope, who died three years ago, were of ''great literary value''.
He said he had asked his son, who is also a composer, to write a musical score for lyrics based on them. The singer, famous for his Three Tenors displays alongside Jose' Carreras and the late Luciano Pavarotti, has sung for the current pope, Benedict XVI, and John Paul II.
John Paul, who died in April 2005 at the age of 84, published two collections of poetry through the Vatican Press: Meditations (March 2003) and The Poetry of Pope John Paul II (September 2003).
One of the best-received poems was one in which he imagined the scene in the Sistine Chapel when his successor would be elected.
Earlier, in 1994, Random House came out with a collection called The Place Within: The Poetry of Pope John Paul II.
The late pope also released or compiled several music CDs, most notably 1999's Abba' Pater ('Father Father' in Aramaic and Latin), which he recorded for the Catholic Church's Jubilee in 2000.
John Paul was an actor and playwright in his native Poland before he became a priest. He wrote his first book, a collection of poems called The Ballad of the Porticos of Wawel, at the age of 20.
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(Source: Ansa)