Diane Warren knows a hit when she hears one. And she says Due Voci is a hit in the making.

The songwriter behind blockbusters including Toni Braxton’s “Un-Break My Heart,” Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” and Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” Warren has created a group to sing her catalog and new songs. Due Voci, the popera duo that opens for the Canadian Tenors Wednesday at the Wilbur Theatre, is the romantic-in-the-extreme tag team of singers/beauties Kelly Levesque and Tyler Hamilton.

Decades and dozens of Top 40 tunes into her career, Warren recognized she needed to find singers that fit a very specific mold for this project. Their voices needed to complement each other like strawberries and champagne; their looks had to evoke the torrid passion a romance novel cover.

“Finding the guy was a nightmare,” Warren said from her Los Angeles studio. “It was about perfect casting, this being something that is more for women. We’d find the look without the voice, or the voice without the look. Then (producer/songwriter) David Foster told me about Tyler Hamilton.”

A hunky Canadian who dropped out of the Top 10 of “Canadian Idol” to be the resident carpenter on an HGTV show, Hamilton was looking for a way back into the music business.

“I don’t know if a guy can have a Cinderella story, but this is mine,” Hamilton said with a laugh from his home in Edmonton. “Diane’s songs are perfect love songs and she’s put together a perfect team of producers, arrangers and management for this project, not including myself of course, unless she needs her kitchen redone.”

Playing on the success of similar heartthrob-meets-classical artists such as Il Divo and Josh Groban, Hamilton and Levesque, spend a lot of time harmonizing on high notes and starring longingly into each others’ eyes. Hamilton said the illusion of love is easy to create.

“Selling the audience isn’t hard when I have a partner that looks and sounds amazing,” he said. “And the battle is half won once we start singing Diane’s songs.”

Some Aerosmith fans may think differently.

Warren is famous for big, blustery ballads that become Celine Dion or Cher standards, although she’s also written for and with Bon Jovi, Ace of Base, Chicago and LeAnn Rimes. But lovers of “Toys in the Attic” think she ruined Aerosmith with one of her trademark ballads. She doesn’t see it.

“I’m powerless over what people think of me, but ‘I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing’ isn’t one of the biggest songs of Aerosmith’s career,” she said. “It’s one of the biggest songs of all time. And it introduced them to a whole new audience.”

Warren’s days writing for the band might not be done. Steven Tyler may be busy with “American Idol,” but Warren said the singer digs a new tune of her’s that she figures could be the next Aero-smash. But that’s for tomorrow – today is about generating buzz for Due Voci.

“We’re starting at the beginning and building that fan base with the right TV and appearances,” she said. “I hear Oprah loves them.”

Which means Due Voci is headed smack into Warren’s target demographic. A hit can’t be far behind.

Now you have a chance to hear some of your favorite songs as they were intended to be conveyed.

If you go
Due Voci opening for the Canadian Tenors

» Where: The Birchmere, 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria
» When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday
» Info: $45; ticketmaster.com

Diane Warren — the Grammy Award-winning songwriter of such tunes as “Un-Break My Heart” and “For You I Will” — has formed Due Voci, a duo of Kelly Levesque and Tyler Hamilton. Together the two vocally present her songs in a way that sounds “like crushed velvet on white satin,” according to a press statement by Warren.

“I grew up with these songs,” Levesque said. “I grew up with the Celine Dion version of ‘Un-Break My Heart’ and everyone knows them that way, [so the task was to reinvent the songs] to make them our own. The songs are so amazing and they became hits, but the lyrics almost got lost [in some versions].”

Warren formed the duo to sing the songs she wrote as arranged by Grammy Award-winner Humberto Gatica, who has worked with Michael Buble and Josh Groban. The arrangements also can be heard on the duo’s self-titled CD, which was released in June. Warren’s songs were also showcased in “Diane Warren: Love Songs,” a PBS special that is also available as a DVD. The concert included performances by LeAnn Rimes, Fantasia, Gloria Estefan, Eric Benet and Toni Braxton, among others.

Due Voci gives listeners a chance to really delve into the lyrics of the songs — such as “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” and “How Do I Live,” and hear them with the full emotion that the words convey.

The duo is opening for the Canadian Tenors, who have played on “Oprah,” at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, and more. The group also recently wrapped a 70-city North American Tour and have had their debut album go to No. 1 on the classical and crossover charts.

Levesque said putting Due Voci together took several years. Although Warren chose her as the female half of the duo, it took about 18 months to find Hamilton.

“It worked out great personally and musically,” Levesque said. “He’s got a very manly voice and it’s very refreshing. It is so different from my voice, so it’s fun to work together.”

The songs the two sing are drenched with emotion, so the duo kept channeling the feeling the songs evoke each time they sang.

“You always need to sing with your heart,” Levesque said. “That is exactly what we love to do. It’s an amazing gift to be a singer and be able to connect with the audience through such songs.”