Andrea Bocelli, attorney at law? Before he became a global sensation as the top-selling opera singer in history — or “popera,” as some have described his enormous crossover success — the Italian superstar earned his law degree at the University of Pisa and worked as a public defender. Bocelli’s switch from litigation to librettos came only after the blind singer decided his heart was in singing arias and cadenzas, not in analyzing affidavits and appealing convictions.

“I earned a degree in the mid-1980s with a thesis entitled, ‘Natural Law and History according to Montesquieu’ — a topic that I loved and that cost me many months of intense study,” recalled Bocelli, who opens his six-city 2022 U.S. “Believe” tour with a Wednesday concert at Pechanga Arena San Diego. He will perform 11 more U.S. dates in December.