You know you've made it big when you do a guest spot on The Young And The Restless.

Pop-opera supergroup Il Divo achieved that lofty level of fame just last week when it serenaded two of the main characters on the long-running daytime soap-opera.

Then again, if CD sales, soldout concerts and fast-beating hearts are any indication, Il Divo's fan base seems to include the young, the restless, and practically everybody else.

"It shows how music doesn't have any borders, it doesn't have any politics," said 32-year-old David Miller, the lone American member of Il Divo, when asked about the group's shocking success over the past two years.

Il Divo -- which is the brain-child of American Idol judge Simon Cowell and also includes 36-year-old Carlos Marin of Spain, 34-year-old Urs Buhler of Switzerland and 32-year-old Sebastien Izambard of France -- has produced two No. 1 CDs in Canada, including the recently released Ancora.

"We work together to find common ground," Miller said. "If you want to call that middle-of-the-road, okay. But music right now is missing that middle-of-the-road."

Il Divo was in Toronto this week to promote Ancora and a performance DVD that will hit stores Tuesday. The group's next concert here is Feb. 6 at the Air Canada Centre.

Marin said he still can't believe the hysteria Il Divo has created, especially in his native Spain.

"When I was hearing the first album, the first mix, I was thinking, 'Maybe we can sell 100,000 copies,' " Marin said. "Since then, we've sold five million copies of that first album around the world. And our second album, again, is No. 1 in eight different countries. It's like living in a dream."

Speaking of dream-like experiences, Miller said appearing on The Young And The Restless was a little weird.

"The way our schedule worked, we had to do our bit well in advance, so the actors weren't there," Miller said. "It was our big acting challenge to make the mood like they were there, and then it was creative editing."

A similar process occurred with the song I Believe In You, a collaboration with Celine Dion that appears on Ancora.

"She recorded her part in Montreal and we recorded our part in Sweden," Marin said.

Il Divo's multi-language approach obviously plays a huge role in its international success, but both Miller and Marin agree the group sounds best in Spanish.

"English can be a little too pop, or it makes it sound like music theatre when you sing with big voices, because the vowels in English are not always pretty," Miller said. "And Italian sometimes can sound too operatic.

"But Spanish is a little bit softer than Italian. We also added French to this CD, and I think we sound good in French, too. But Spanish is the most romantic. It's what you might say schmaltzy, because it's sweeter romantic, rather than the grand romantic of Italian."

Marin has to be the final authority on this, right?

"Italian sounds good, too," the Spaniard said, "but Spanish is a special, sexy thing."

For millions, apparently, Il Divo is a special, sexy thing.

"Simon Cowell thought our fans would range from age 30 to, say, 90 or 100 years old," Marin said with a laugh. "But it has been unbelievable. In a lot of places we go, there are 15- and 16-year-old girls going crazy."