Album Associated With Casino Is Winner

The soundtrack of a commercial for a soon-to-open Las Vegas casino has struck a chord with viewers.

Sales of “Romanza,” a 1997 album by Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, have soared in the three weeks since the commercial for the Bellagio hotel-casino first aired. The ad, which shows a couple swooning outside the Italian Renaissance-style casino, uses “Con Te Patiro” from the album.

Since the commercial first ran during the Emmy Awards telecast, “Romanza” has moved to No. 56 on Billboard’s Music of the World chart, up from No. 103. The album is distributed in the United States by PolyGram.

“It’s rare that a commercial has such an impact on sales,” PolyGram spokeswoman Carol Della Penna said. According to a representative of Bellagio, the casino acquired rights from Bocelli to use the recording for six weeks only. So the commercial isn’t scheduled to air beyond the end of October.

PolyGram, a unit of Seagram Co., is making the most of the brief opportunity provided by the ad. It’s affixing stickers that say “the voice heard in the Bellagio resort commercial” to new shipments of “Romanza.”