Il Divo brings the music of the night to Chastain

The dashing quartet Il Divo — American tenor David Miller, Swiss tenor Urs Buhler, French pop singer Sebastien Izambard and Spanish baritone Carlos Marin — is undeniably one of Simon Cowell’s greatest creations.

Or, at least, the one that is the most suavely dressed.

With more than 26 million albums sold worldwide — no thanks to radio, but with plenty of help from PBS and word-of-mouth by swooning, impressed women — the singing group remains a classical-pop powerhouse.

Their most recent album, “A Musical Affair,” showcases material from Broadway and musical theater. Those songs are the centerpiece of their tour, which plays Chastain Park Amphitheatre Saturday.

Adding her own magical pipes to the evening of song is Tony-winning Broadway vet Lea Salonga (“Les Miserables,” “Miss Saigon”).

Il Divo’s Miller checked in recently to talk about the show, some of the unlikely duets on “A Musical Affair” and how working with Barbra Streisand changed him.

Q: Your new album focuses on Broadway songs. How is that working on tour?

A: We have been getting a surprisingly amazing response from people. It's one of those things where you're not really sure when you bring out a new tour that people are going to love it, no matter how excited you are about it. We had just finished six weeks across Asia, where the markets are hit or miss as far as theater music. Some loved it, some had no frame of reference and were expecting the old Il Divo shows. But we get here to America, where music theater is, like jazz, part of our heritage. Saleswise, not many people have the new album. But people have still been going nuts. We are doing some things from other albums, but the focus is all musical theater — the whole new album, plus some musical theater songs that appeared on other albums and a few of the fan favorites.

Q: Tell me about the live show and having Lea out there with you.

A: We have a musical director on drums and a conductor and we pull together a 27-piece orchestra that afternoon. Working with Lea has been a fantastic surprise. She was one of the first people we approached because we had to find someone versatile enough to handle all of these different ranges. We duet with her and give her some time on her own.

Q: It’s kind of hard to believe it’s been a decade since your first album. Are you feeling it?

A: In a way we feel it, but in a way, no. Ask me that question at the end of the tour! (laughs)

Q: I would imagine there are a lot of career highlights, like opening for Barbra Streisand.

A: Streisand was definitely one of the biggest. Working with her was a game changer for me as an artist. As an opera singer it's all about perfecting the known quantity. The notes on the page, the words in the text, you have to get your Italian absolutely perfect. I was approaching Il Divo from the standpoint of getting the best performance possible and every time I'd sing a line as consistent as possible. Coming in contact with Streisand, she is, besides an amazing artist, a live-in-the-moment singer. However she takes a breath, whatever the audience is giving her, the song is never the same twice. It helped me to let go and think about how I'm feeling when I'm singing a note.

Q: How did you choose which Broadway songs to cover and which singers to perform with? Kristin Chenoweth, you might expect, but not necessarily Nicole Scherzinger.

A: It was a terrible process; it was absolutely agonizing.

After five albums of getting to the place where you know what’s going on, we can go into a studio and knock out an album in a week.

So, going and doing this thing, it was like everyone had left their memory at home and was like, “What should we do with this?” We started watching YouTubes of different songs. We’d listen to Streisand’s version of this or Michael Ball’s version of that. We narrowed down something like 85 songs, then we got it to about 15 songs, then we had someone chip in the wonderful idea of doing duets.

We’d hear, “We’re going to try and get Beyonce,” but we had to go into the studio and they hadn’t gotten the duet partners (confirmed) yet. So they set the keys (of the song) for who might be singing. Females need different keys than men, so we had to find this neutral key. We did get Kristin, and we pulled the Streisand track (from a recording of their 2012 tour together). Michael Ball invited us to do “Love Changes Everything” because he wanted us to be on his album. Then we got Heather Headley to do “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.” That’s one of the few tracks on there where I felt, this makes sense. Nicole was the sleeper duet. I thought it would be a disaster, but she has a lovely voice and I was quite surprised. It all ended up what it should have been. I’m a big believer in everything turns out the way it’s supposed to, but (laughs) I’m also a bit of a megalomaniac and a control freak.