Luciano Pavarotti,

(12 October 1935 6 September 2007) was an Italian operatic tenor, who also crossed over into popular music, eventually becoming one of the most commercially successful tenors of all time. He made numerous recordings of complete operas and individual arias, and established himself as one of the finest tenors of the 20th century.[1] He was one of The Three Tenors and became well known for his televised concerts and media appearances. Pavarotti was also noted for his charity work on behalf ofrefugees and the Red Cross, amongst others. Pavarotti began his professional career as a tenor in 1961 in Italy. That same year, he made his first international appearance in La traviata in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.[2] He sang in opera houses in addition to Italy, in the Netherlands, Vienna, London, Ankara, Budapest andBarcelona. The young tenor earned valuable experience and recognition while touringAustralia at the invitation of soprano Joan Sutherland in 1965. He made his United Statesdebut in Miami soon afterwards, also on Sutherland's recommendation. His position as a leading lyric tenor was consolidated in the years between 1966 and 1972, during which time he first appeared at Milan's La Scala and other major European houses. In 1968, he debuted at New York City's Metropolitan Opera as Rodolfo in Puccini's La bohme. At the Met in 1972, in the role of Tonio in Donizetti's La fille du rgiment he earned the title "King of the high Cs" when he sang the aria"Ah mes amis ... pour mon me". He gained worldwide fame for the brilliance and beauty of his tone, especially into the upperregister.[3] He was at his best in bel canto operas, preAida Verdi roles and Puccini works such as La bohme, Tosca and Madama Butterfly. The late 1970s and 1980s saw Pavarotti continue to make significant appearances in the world's foremost opera houses. Celebrity beyond the world of opera came to Pavarotti at the 1990 World Cup in Italy with performances of Puccini's "Nessun dorma", sample (helpinfo) from Turandot, and as one of The Three Tenors in their famed first concert held on the eve of the tournament's final match. He sang on that occasion with fellow star tenors Plcido Domingo and Jos Carreras, bringing opera highlights to a wider audience. Appearances in advertisements and with pop icons in concerts furthered his international celebrity. His final performance in an opera was at the Metropolitan Opera in March 2004. Later that year, the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) inducted him into its Italian American Hall of Fame in recognition of his lifetime of work. During a ceremony held at the Foundation's Anniversary Gala just four days after his 69th birthday, singer Faith Hill presented Pavarotti with a birthday cake and sang "Happy Birthday" to the opera legend. The 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, saw Pavarotti on stage for the last time, where he performed "Nessun dorma", with the crowd serving as the aria's chorus, and he received a thunderous standing ovation.[4] He died from pancreatic cancer on 6 September 2007. Luciano Pavarotti was born in 1935 on the outskirts of Modena in Northern Italy, the son of Fernando Pavarotti, a baker and amateur tenor, and Adele Venturi, a cigar factory worker. [5] Although he spoke fondly of his childhood, the family had little money; its four members were crowded into a two-room apartment. According to Pavarotti, his father had a fine tenor voice but rejected the possibility of a singing career because of nervousness. World War II forced the family out of the city in 1943. For the following year they rented a single room from a farmer in the neighbouring countryside, where the young Pavarotti developed an interest in farming.

After abandoning the dream of becoming a football goalkeeper, Pavarotti spent seven years in vocal training. Pavarotti's earliest musical influences were his father's recordings, most of them featuring the popular tenors of the day - Beniamino Gigli, Giovanni Martinelli, Tito Schipa and Enrico Caruso. Pavarotti's favourite tenor and idol was Giuseppe Di Stefano. He was also deeply influenced by Mario Lanza, saying, "In my teens I used to go to Mario Lanza movies and then come home and imitate him in the mirror". At around the age of nine he began singing with his father in a small local church choir. After what appears to have been a normal childhood with a typical interest in sports in Pavarotti's case football above all, he graduated from the Scuola Magistrale and faced the dilemma of a career choice. He was interested in pursuing a career as a professional football goalkeeper, but his mother convinced him to train as a teacher. He subsequently taught in an elementary school for two years but finally allowed his interest in music to win out. Recognising the risk involved, his father gave his consent only reluctantly. Pavarotti began the serious study of music in 1954 at the age of 19 with Arrigo Pola, a respected teacher and professional tenor in Modena who offered to teach him without remuneration. Not until he began these studies was Pavarotti aware that he had perfect pitch. In 1955, he experienced his first singing success when he was a member of the Corale Rossini, a male voice choir from Modena that also included his father, which won first prize at the International Eisteddfod in Llangollen, Wales. He later said that this was the most important experience of his life, and that it inspired him to become a professional singer. At about this time Pavarotti first met Adua Veroni. They married in 1961. When his teacher Arrigo Pola moved to Japan, Pavarotti became a student of Ettore Campogalliani, who at that time was also teaching Pavarotti's childhood friend, Mirella Freni, whose mother worked with Luciano's mother in the cigar factory. Like Pavarotti, Freni was destined to operatic greatness; they were to share the stage many times and make memorable recordings together. During his years of musical study, Pavarotti held part time jobs in order to sustain himself first as an elementary school teacher and then as an insurance salesman. The first six years of study resulted in only a few recitals, all in small towns and without pay. When anodule developed on his vocal cords, causing a "disastrous" concert in Ferrara, he decided to give up singing. Pavarotti attributed his immediate improvement to the psychological release connected with this decision. Whatever the reason, the nodule not only disappeared but, as he related in his autobiography, "Everything I had learned came together with my natural voice to make the sound I had been struggling so hard to achieve". At the beginning of the 1980s, he set up The Pavarotti International Voice Competition for young singers, performing with the winners in 1982 in excerpts of La Bohme and L'Elisir d'Amore. The second competition, in 1986, staged excerpts of La Bohme and Un Ballo in Maschera. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of his career, he brought the winners of the competition to Italy for gala performances of La Bohme in Modena and Genoa, and then to China where they staged performances of La Bohme in Beijing (Peking). To conclude the visit, Pavarotti performed the first ever concert in the Great Hall of the People before 10,000 people, receiving a standing ovation for nine effortless high Cs. The third competition in 1989 again staged performances of L'Elisir d'Amore and Un ballo in Maschera. The winners of the fifth competition accompanied Pavarotti in performances in Philadelphia in 1997. In the mid-1980s, Pavarotti returned to two opera houses that had provided him with important breakthroughs, the Vienna State Operaand La Scala. Vienna saw Pavarotti as Rodolfo in La

Bohme with Carlos Kleiber conducting and again Mirella Freni was Mimi; as Nemorino in L'Elisir d'Amore; as Radames in Ada conducted by Lorin Maazel; as Rodolfo in Luisa Miller; and as Gustavo in Un Ballo in Maschera conducted by Claudio Abbado. In 1996, Pavarotti appeared for the last time at the Staatsoper in Andrea Chenier. In 1985, Pavarotti sang Radames at La Scala opposite Maria Chiara in a Luca Ronconi production conducted by Maazel, recorded on video. His performance of the aria "Celeste Ada" received a two-minute ovation on the opening night. He was reunited with Mirella Freni for the San Francisco Opera production of La Bohme in 1988, also recorded on video. In 1992, La Scala saw Pavarotti in a new Zeffirelli production of Don Carlo, conducted by Riccardo Muti. Pavarotti's performance was heavily criticized by some observers and booed by parts of the audience. Pavarotti became even better known throughout the world in 1990 when his rendition of Giacomo Puccini's aria, "Nessun Dorma" fromTurandot was taken as the theme song of BBC's TV coverage of the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy. The aria achieved pop status and remained his trademark song. This was followed by the hugely successful Three Tenors concert, held on the eve of the World Cup final at the ancient Baths of Caracalla in Rome with fellow tenors Plcido Domingo and Jos Carreras and conductor Zubin Mehta, which became the biggest selling classical record of all time. A highlight of the concert, in which Pavarotti hammed up a famous portion of di Capua's "O Sole Mio" and was mimicked by Domingo and Carreras to the delight of the audience, became one of the most memorable moments in contemporary operatic history. Throughout the 1990s, Pavarotti appeared in many well-attended outdoor concerts, including his televised concert in London's Hyde Park, which drew a record attendance of 150,000. In June 1993, more than 500,000 listeners gathered for his free performance on the Great Lawn of New York's Central Park, while millions more around the world watched on television. The following September, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, he sang for an estimated crowd of 300,000. Following on from the original 1990 concert, the Three Tenors concerts were held during the Football World Cups: in Los Angeles in 1994, in Paris in 1998, and in Yokohama in 2002. In 1995, Pavarotti's friends, the singer Lara Saint Paul (as Lara Cariaggi) and her husband showman Pier Quinto Cariaggi, who had produced and organised Pavarotti's 1990 FIFA World Cup Celebration Concert at the PalaTrussardi in Milan,[14] produced and wrote the television documentary The Best is Yet to Come, an extensive biography about the life of Pavarotti.[15] Lara Saint Paul was the interviewer for the documentary with Pavarotti, who spoke candidly about his life and career.[16] Pavarotti's rise to stardom was not without occasional difficulties, however. He earned a reputation as "The King of Cancellations" by frequently backing out of performances, and his unreliable nature led to poor relationships with some opera houses. This was brought into focus in 1989 when Ardis Krainik of the Lyric Opera of Chicago severed the house's 15-year relationship with the tenor.[17] Over an eight-year period, Pavarotti had cancelled 26 out of 41 scheduled appearances at the Lyric, and the decisive move by Krainik to ban him for life was well-noted throughout the opera world, after the performer walked away from a season premiere less than two weeks before rehearsals began, saying pain from a sciatic nerve required two months of treatment. On 12 December 1998, he became the first (and, to date, only) opera singer to perform on Saturday Night Live, singing alongsideVanessa L. Williams. He also sang with U2, in the band's 1995 song "Miss Sarajevo", and with Mercedes Sosa in a big concert at theBoca Juniors arena La Bombonera in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1999.

In 1998, Pavarotti was presented with the Grammy Legend Award. As of 2011, this award has been given 15 times since its first presentation in 1990. In 2004, one of Pavarotti's former managers, Herbert Breslin, published a book, The King & I. [17] Seen by many as bitter and sensationalistic, it is critical of the singer's acting (in opera), his inability to read music well and learn parts, and of his personal conduct, although acknowledging their mutual success. In an interview in 2005 with Jeremy Paxman on the BBC, Pavarotti rejected the allegation that he could not read music, although he acknowledged he did not read orchestral scores. He received an enormous number of awards and honours, including Kennedy Center Honors in 2001. He also holds two Guinness World Records: one for receiving the most curtain calls(165) [18] and another for the best-selling classical album (In Concert by The Three Tenors). (The latter record is thus shared by fellow tenors Plcido Domingo and Jos Carreras.) In late 2003, he released his final compilation - and his first and only "crossover" album, Ti Adoro. Most of the 13 songs were written and produced by the Michele Centonze who had already helped produce the "Pavarotti & Friends" concerts between 1998 and 2000.[19] The tenor described the album as a wedding gift to Nicoletta Mantovani. That same year he was made a Commander of Monaco's Order of Cultural Merit.[20]