The pair are presently in the singles charts (and at No 1 in Ireland) with “Time to Say Goodbye”, taken from Bocelli’s fourth album Romanza.
Bocelli may be far more than a singer of classical-ish pop ballads but, at present, all publicity efforts are concentrated on positioning him in that World Cup-”Nessun Dorma” market known as “crossover” – music for those growing out of pop who think classical is a bit difficult.That was the market available, and Bocelli has waded in (Romanza is at number 6 in the UK album chart), clearly in the hope that commercial success will lead to the operatic challenges – recitals or staged operas – that he longs to attempt.Unfortunately, the campaign to sell pop-type records needs to emphasise his blindness – an unknown singer needs a hook to catch the media (beyond declarations of talent), which irritates Bocelli no end.A tall, dark and handsome man with too much designer stubble for my taste, Bocelli, on a publicity tour to Britain, is magisterially bored by questions about his blindness, dismissing as meaningless the tag of “the blind tenor” bandied about by his PRs.He lost his sight completely through a football injury when he was 12, but says it was of no consequence, either to his operatic ambitions or to his horsemanship.”Kids have no tragedies, the tragedy is people making a fuss out of something they consider tragic,” he says. Covering dance, literature, a massive display of contemporary visual arts, at Oxford’s Museum of Modern Art, appearances in Cardiff, at the Edinburgh Festival and culminating in visits from the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Ensemble at the Wigmore Hall in the autumn, New Images should, thinks Lynch “shake out a few coarser prejudices”.For Lynch, art is still the best way, the spearhead by which cultures can learn and adapt their views about each other. But as luck and the ironies of history would have it, it is precisely the British establishment which is about to provide Lynch and Australia with its best opportunity yet to kick away the traces.On the back of the British Council’s 50 years in Oz, and with the last government’s blessing, a six-month exchange programme, New Images has been set in motion of which LIFT is but the beginning. And he’s looking to a time when we see them, as they are now, not as pre-conceptions learnt from a few select voices Les Paterson is dead.

Long live New ImagesLIFT runs to June 29; `New Images’ runs to Nov. “There’ll always be a close relationship between Britain and Australia despite our differences,” he says. “We tried and tried to get The National Theatre to buy our production They just wouldn’t. Instead, they bought the play, got Alan Ayckbourn to direct it and imported our lead. We were displeased,” he says in tones prickly with hurt and censure.Ancient injustices, perceived snubs clearly still run deep. Most major British theatre companies, he complains, have visited Australia without invitations being served the other way.

Notoriously, he tells of one recent experience with an Australian production, Two Weeks with the Queen, put on in Sydney and scheduled for performance at the National here. Oozing self-confidence, not of the blustering kind, but of one who sees advantage swinging his way, he’s refreshingly trenchant on old guards giving way to the new – “the babyboomers, the 40- to 60- year olds have had a stranglehold in Australia for the past 20 years.” He also gives every impression of a man who knows what he wants and how to achieve it.Britain however, at least insofar as the performing arts are concerned, remains, according to Lynch, a notoriously difficult market to crack His major complaint is our lack of reciprocity. And in Lynch, now 46, a member of the organising committee for the next Olympic Games in Sydney and solid experience behind him as arts and theatre administrator and film producer, Australia could hardly have found a less Les Paterson-like, more persuasive emissary.”I take great pride in opening up Australia to the world,” he asserts – and you believe him. To Michael Lynch, real-life Australian cultural supremo, the name of Barry Humphries’s salivating alter ego is enough to make even his usually smooth features collapse into something close to a wrinkle of disgust.