Italian Tenor
Luciano Pavarotti

1939 - 2007:

Luciano Pavarotti is a giant in the world of opera and classical music. His international fame has helped these forms of music reach a much wider and diverse audience then it ever had before. Even people who've never listened to a single aria, let alone sat through an entire opera, recognize the tenor's name and famous bearded face.

"I want to be famous everywhere" - Luciano Pavarotti

Instantly recognizable from his charcoal black beard and tuxedo-busting girth, Pavarotti radiated an intangible magic that helped him win hearts in a way Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras - his partners in the "Three Tenors" concerts - never quite could.

"I always admired the God-given glory of his voice - that unmistakable special timbre from the bottom up to the very top of the tenor range," Domingo said in a statement from Los Angeles.

"I also loved his wonderful sense of humor and on several occasions of our concerts with Jose Carreras - the so-called Three Tenors concerts - we had trouble remembering that we were giving a concert before a paying audience, because we had so much fun between ourselves," he said.

Pavarotti, who seemed equally at ease singing with soprano Joan Sutherland as with the Spice Girls, scoffed at accusations that he was sacrificing his art in favor of commercialism.

"The word commercial is exactly what we want," he said, after appearing in the widely publicized "Three Tenors" concerts. "We've reached 1.5 billion people with opera. If you want to use the word commercial, or something more derogatory, we don't care.

Use whatever you want."

In the annals of that rare and coddled breed, the operatic tenor, it may well be said the 20th century began with Enrico Caruso and ended with Pavarotti. Other tenors - Domingo included - may have drawn more praise from critics for their artistic range and insights, but none could equal the combination of natural talent and personal charm that so endeared Pavarotti to audiences.

"Pavarotti is the biggest superstar of all," the late New York Times music critic Harold Schonberg once said. "He's correspondingly more spoiled than anybody else.

They think they can get away with anything. Thanks to the glory of his voice, he probably can."

In his heyday, he was known as the "King of the High C's" for the ease with which he tossed off difficult top notes. In fact it was his ability to hit nine glorious high C's in quick succession that first turned him into an international superstar.

Pavarotti starred in a film called "Yes, Giorgio" (though its failure scuttled his hopes for a Hollywood career) and appeared in a filmed version of "Rigoletto." He wrote an autobiography, "I, Luciano Pavarotti," and made more than 90 recordings.

From Beijing to Buenos Aires, people immediately recognized his incandescent smile and lumbering bulk, clutching a white handkerchief as he sang arias and Neapolitan folk songs, pop numbers and Christmas carols for hundreds of thousands in outdoor concerts.

His name seemed to show up as much in gossip columns as serious music reviews, particularly after he split with Adua Veroni, his wife of 35 years and mother of their three daughters, and then took up with his 26-year-old secretary in 1996.

In late 2003, he married Nicoletta Mantovani in a lavish, star-studded ceremony. Pavarotti said their daughter Alice, nearly a year old at the time of the wedding, was the main reason he and Mantovani finally wed after years together. In the latter part of his career, some music critics cited what they saw as an increasing tendency toward the vulgar and the commercial.

He came under fire for canceling performances or pandering to the lowest common denominator in his choice of programs, or for the Three Tenors tours and their millions of dollars in fees.

He was criticized for lip-synching at a concert in Modena, Italy, his hometown. An artist accused him of copying her works from a how-to-draw book and selling the paintings. The son of a baker who was an amateur singer, Pavarotti was born Oct. 12, 1935, in Modena. He had a meager upbringing, though he said it was rich with happiness.

"Our family had very little, but I couldn't imagine one could have any more," Pavarotti said.

As a boy, Pavarotti showed more interest in soccer than his studies, but he also was fond of listening to his father's recordings of tenor greats like Beniamino Gigli, Tito Schipa, Jussi Bjoerling and Giuseppe Di Stefano, his favorite. Among his close childhood friends was Mirella Freni, who would eventually become a soprano and an opera great herself.

The two studied singing together and years later ended up making records and concerts together, according to Elvio Giudici, an Italian opera critic. In his teens, Pavarotti joined his father, also a tenor, in the church choir and local opera chorus. He was influenced by the American movie actor-singer Mario Lanza.

"In my teens I used to go to Mario Lanza movies and then come home and imitate him in the mirror," Pavarotti said. Singing was still nothing more than a passion while Pavarotti trained to become a teacher and began working in a school.

But at 20, he traveled with his chorus to an international music competition in Wales. The Modena group won first place, and Pavarotti began to dedicate himself to singing.

With the encouragement of his then fiancee, Adua Veroni, he started lessons, selling insurance to pay for them. He studied with Arrigo Pola and later Ettore Campogalliani.

It was the recognition Pavarotti needed to launch his career. He also credited Sutherland with teaching him how to breathe correctly. In the following years, Pavarotti made a series of major debuts, appearing at La Scala in Milan in 1965, San Francisco in 1967 and New York's Metropolitan Opera House in 1968. Other early venues included Vienna, Paris and Chicago.

Throughout his career, Pavarotti struggled with a much-publicized weight problem. His love of food caused him to balloon to a reported high of 396 pounds in 1978.

"Maybe this time I'll really do it and keep it up," he said during one of his constant attempts at dieting.

Though there appeared to be professional jealousy between the great singers, Pavarotti claimed he preferred to judge himself only against his earlier performances.

In the mid-1970s, Pavarotti became a true media star. He appeared in television commercials and began appearing in hugely lucrative mega-concerts outdoors and in stadiums around the world. Soon came joint concerts with pop stars. A concert in New York's Central Park in 1993 drew 500,000 fans.

Pavarotti's recording of "Volare" went platinum in 1988. In 1990, he appeared with Domingo and Carreras in a concert at the Baths of Caracalla in Rome for the end of soccer's World Cup. The concert was a huge success, and the record known as "The Three Tenors" was a best-seller and was nominated for two Grammy awards.

The video sold over 750,000 copies. The three-tenor extravaganza became a mini-industry. With a follow-up album recorded at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles in 1994, the three have outsold every other performer of classical music.

A 1996 tour earned each tenor an estimated $10 million. Pavarotti liked to mingle with pop stars in his series of charity concerts, "Pavarotti & Friends," held annually in Modena. He performed with artists as varied as Ricky Martin, James Brown and the Spice Girls.

The performances raised some eyebrows but he always shrugged off the criticism. Some say the "word pop is a derogatory word to say 'not important' - I do not accept that," Pavarotti said in a 2004 interview with the AP.

"If the word classic is the word to say 'boring,' I do not accept. There is good and bad music. "It was not just his annual extravaganza that saw Pavarotti involved in humanitarian work.

During the 1992-95 Bosnia war, he collected humanitarian aid along with U2 lead singer Bono, and after the war he financed and established the Pavarotti Music Center in the southern city of Mostar to offer Bosnia's artists the opportunity to develop their skills.

He performed at benefit concerts to raise money for victims of tragedies such as an earthquake in December 1988 that killed 25,000 people in northern Armenia. Pavarotti was also dogged by accusations of tax evasion, and in 2000 he agreed to pay nearly roughly $12 million to the Italian state after he had unsuccessfully claimed that the tax haven of Monte Carlo rather than Italy was his official residence. He had been accused in 1996 of filing false tax returns for 1989-91.

Pavarotti always denied wrongdoing, saying he paid taxes wherever he performed. But, upon agreeing to the settlement, he said: "I cannot live being thought not a good person.

"Pavarotti was preparing to leave New York in July 2006 to resume a farewell tour when doctors discovered a malignant pancreatic mass, his manager Robson said at the time.

He underwent surgery in a New York hospital, and all his remaining 2006 concerts were canceled. Pancreatic cancer is one of the most dangerous forms of the disease, though doctors said the surgery offered improved hopes for survival.

"I was a fortunate and happy man," Pavarotti told Italian daily Corriere della Sera in an interview published about a month after the surgery. "After that, this blow arrived."

"And now I am paying the penalty for this fortune and happiness," he told the newspaper. Fans were still waiting for a public appearance a year after his surgery. In the summer, Pavarotti taught a group of selected students and worked on a recording of sacred songs, a work expected to be released in early 2008, according to his manager.

He mostly divided his time between his home town, Modena, and his villa in the Adriatic seaside resort of Pesaro.

Just this week, the Italian government honored him with an award for "excellence in Italian culture," and La Scala and Modena's theater announced a joint Luciano Pavarotti award.

In his final statement, Pavarotti said the awards gave him "the opportunity to continue to celebrate the magic of a life dedicated to the arts and it fills me with pride and joy to have been able to promote my magnificent country abroad.

"Faced with speculation that the tenor was near death, Mantovani, his second wife, told Italian newspaper La Stampa in July 2007: "He's fighting like a lion and he has never lost his heart."

Pavarotti had three daughters with his first wife, Lorenza, Cristina and Giuliana; and one, Alice, with his second wife.At his side when he died were his wife, Nicoletta; his four daughters; his sister, Gabriela; his nephews and close relatives and friends, acting in the movies, playing a famous tenor in 1982's Yes, Giorgio.

Despite their son's obvious enthusiasm and talent for singing, the Pavarotti parents made sure he had another career to fall back on. Pavarotti studied to become a primary school teacher and later an insurance salesman. He did well and enjoyed both of these professions, but by this point nothing could quell his burning desire to make it as a professional tenor.

Pavarotti received his first of five Grammys for Best Classical Vocal Soloist Performance in 1978. In 1980, the Maestro had his first American hit record with an album of non-classical pieces. O Sole Mio -- Favorite Neapolitan Songs achieved gold-selling status and cracked Billboard's Top 100 album chart. He followed this up with a double Greatest Hits collection, which did equally well stateside.

Pavarotti's fame and popularity increased immensely during the 1990s. He made his debut with Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras -- collectively known as the Three Tenors -- in Rome, during World Cup 1990. This teaming of three of the greatest living tenors on the planet helped make Pavarotti and company household names.

In 1992, the big man with the big heart inaugurated his global relief initiative known as Pavarotti & Friends: special concert events that raise money for victims of war and violence.

His audiences grew bigger, as he sang before more than a half million people in New York's Central Park in 1993, and millions more worldwide tuned in on their television sets.

The Three Tenors released a self-titled album in 1994, which shot to the top of the charts and sold in the millions the world over. The album made the Top 5 on Billboard's pop album charts, sandwiched between Green Day and the Forrest Gump soundtrack.

Pavarotti's personal life underwent a major upheaval during the mid-'90s, after he was photographed in compromising positions with his personal secretary, Nicoletta Mantovani, while on holiday together in Barbados.

The affair led to the breakdown of his marriage to his wife of 35 years, Adua Veroni, who was also his business manager. He has three daughters with Adua -- Lorenza, born 1962, Cristina, born 1964, and Giuliana, born 1967. Nicoletta Mantovani, half his age, has been with him since.

The disclosure of the Mantovani affair created a bit of a scandal in Catholic Italy. The Maestro was convicted of tax evasion in 1999, and agreed to repay the Italian government over $11 million in back taxes and penalties.

He was eventually cleared of all charges in 2001. Despite his personal problems, Pavarotti was presented with the World Social Award in 2001, for his humanitarian and charitable work.

In June 2001, the Three Tenors performed in Beijing's Forbidden City, as part of the Chinese capital's bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games. Pavarotti performed an impromptu duet of "O Sole Mio" with Chinese president Jiang Zemin, when the pair met after the concert.

The famous tenors reunited once again for a concert at Yokohama Arena, Japan at World Cup 2002. The reunion coincided with the release of The Best of the Three Tenors in June.

Pavarotti, who became a proud grandfather in April 2002, became a father for the fourth time when Mantovani gave birth prematurely to daughter Alice in January 2003. Sadly, a male twin was born dead following complications.