57 Facts About Luciano Pavarotti

Luciano Pavarotti was an Italian operatic tenor who during the late part of his career crossed over into popular music, eventually becoming one of the most acclaimed tenors of all time.

Luciano Pavarotti made numerous recordings of complete operas and individual arias, gaining worldwide fame for his tone, and gaining the nickname "King of the High Cs".

Luciano Pavarotti sold over 100 million records, and the first Three Tenors recording became the best-selling classical album of all time.

Luciano Pavarotti was noted for his charity work on behalf of refugees and the Red Cross, amongst others.

Luciano Pavarotti was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 1988, and 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.

Luciano Pavarotti subsequently taught in an elementary school for two years but finally decided to pursue a music career.

Luciano Pavarotti's father, recognising the risk involved, only reluctantly gave his consent.

Luciano 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.

Luciano Pavarotti later said that this was the most important experience of his life, and that it inspired him to become a professional singer.

When his teacher Arrigo Pola moved to Japan, Pavarotti became a student of Ettore Campogalliani, who at that time was teaching Pavarotti's childhood friend, Mirella Freni, whose mother worked with Luciano's mother in the cigar factory.

Luciano Pavarotti attributed his immediate improvement to the psychological release connected with this decision.

Luciano Pavarotti began his career as a tenor in smaller regional Italian opera houses, making his debut as Rodolfo in La boheme at the Teatro Municipale in Reggio Emilia in April 1961.

Luciano Pavarotti's first known recording of "Che gelida manina" was recorded during this performance.

Luciano Pavarotti made his first international appearance in La traviata in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

However, before the summer 1965 Australia tour Luciano Pavarotti sang with Joan Sutherland when he made his American debut with the Greater Miami Opera in February 1965, singing in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor on the stage of the Miami-Dade County Auditorium in Miami.

Luciano Pavarotti scored another major triumph in Rome on 20 November 1969 when he sang in I Lombardi opposite Renata Scotto.

Luciano Pavarotti began to give frequent television performances, starting with his performances as Rodolfo in the first Live from the Met telecast in March 1977, which attracted one of the largest audiences ever for a televised opera.

Luciano Pavarotti won many Grammy awards and platinum and gold discs for his performances.

In 1976, Luciano Pavarotti debuted at the Salzburg Festival, appearing in a solo recital on 31 July, accompanied by pianist Leone Magiera.

Luciano Pavarotti returned to the festival in 1978 with a recital and as the Italian singer in Der Rosenkavalier in 1983 with Idomeneo, and both in 1985 and 1988 with solo recitals.

In 1996, Luciano Pavarotti appeared for the last time at the Staatsoper in Andrea Chenier.

In 1985, Luciano Pavarotti sang Radames at La Scala opposite Maria Chiara in a Luca Ronconi production conducted by Maazel, recorded on video.

Luciano Pavarotti was reunited with Mirella Freni for the San Francisco Opera production of La boheme in 1988, recorded on video.

Luciano Pavarotti's performance was heavily criticised by some observers and booed by parts of the audience.

Luciano Pavarotti became even better known throughout the world in 1990 when his rendition of the aria "Nessun dorma" from Giacomo Puccini's Turandot was taken as the theme song of BBC's coverage of the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy.

In September 1995, Luciano Pavarotti performed Schubert's Ave Maria along with Dolores O'Riordan; Diana, Princess of Wales, who attended the live performance, told O'Riordan that the song brought her to tears.

Lara Saint Paul was the interviewer for the documentary with Luciano Pavarotti, who spoke candidly about his life and career.

Luciano Pavarotti's rise to stardom was not without occasional difficulties, however.

Luciano Pavarotti 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.

Over an eight-year period, Luciano 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.

Luciano Pavarotti sang with U2 in the band's 1995 song "Miss Sarajevo" and with Mercedes Sosa in a big concert at the Boca Juniors arena La Bombonera in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1999.

In 1998, Luciano Pavarotti was presented with the Grammy Legend Award.

In 2001, Luciano Pavarotti was acquitted in Italian court of a long standing dispute concerning his official country of residency and taxable earnings.

Luciano Pavarotti long claimed Monte Carlo in the tax haven of Monaco as his official residence, but an Italian court in 1999 had rejected that claim by ruling that his Monaco address could not accommodate his entire family.

In 2000 Luciano Pavarotti agreed to pay the Italian government more than $7.6 million in back taxes and penalties as a result of tax evasion charges that dated from 1989 to 1995.

Luciano Pavarotti was fully acquitted by an Italian court of filing false tax returns in 2001.

Luciano Pavarotti received an enormous number of awards and honours, including Kennedy Center Honors in 2001.

Luciano Pavarotti holds two Guinness World Records: one for receiving the most curtain calls and another for the best-selling classical album.

Luciano Pavarotti began his farewell tour in 2004, at the age of 69, performing one last time in old and new locations, after more than four decades on the stage.

On 13 March 2004, Luciano Pavarotti gave his last performance in an opera at the New York Metropolitan Opera, for which he received a long standing ovation for his role as the painter Mario Cavaradossi in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca.

In March 2005, Luciano Pavarotti underwent neck surgery to repair two vertebrae.

On 10 February 2006, Luciano Pavarotti performed "Nessun dorma" at the 2006 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Turin, Italy, at his final performance.

Luciano Pavarotti can be seen to better advantage in Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's movie Rigoletto, an adaptation of the opera of the same name released in 1982, or in his more than 20 live opera performances taped for television between 1978 and 1994, most of them with the Metropolitan Opera, and most available on DVD.

Luciano Pavarotti received two Primetime Emmy Awards for his PBS variety specials Pavarotti in Philadelphia: La Boheme and Duke of Mantua, Rigoletto Great Performances.

Luciano Pavarotti performed at benefit concerts to raise money for victims of tragedies such as the Spitak earthquake that killed 25,000 people in northern Armenia in December 1988, and sang Gounod's Ave Maria with legendary French pop music star and ethnic Armenian Charles Aznavour.

Luciano Pavarotti was a close friend of Diana, Princess of Wales.

In 1999, Luciano Pavarotti performed a charity benefit concert in Beirut, to mark Lebanon's re-emergence on the world stage after a brutal 15-year civil war.

In 2001, Luciano Pavarotti received the Nansen Medal from the UN High Commission for Refugees for his efforts raising money on behalf of refugees worldwide.

Also in 2001, Luciano Pavarotti was chosen one of that year's five recipients by the President and First Lady as an honoree for their lifetime achievements in the arts at the White House, followed by the Kennedy Center; the Kennedy Center Honors, He was surprised by the appearance of Secretary-General of the United Nations and that year's winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Kofi Annan, who lauded him for his contribution to humankind.

Six months prior, Luciano Pavarotti had held a large charity concert for Afghan refugees, particularly children in his home town of Modena, Italy.

Luciano Pavarotti was a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.

Luciano Pavarotti left an estate outside his native Modena, a villa in Pesaro, his flat in Monte Carlo, and three flats in New York City.

Luciano Pavarotti drafted two wills before his death: one divided his assets by Italian law, giving half to his second wife, Nicoletta Mantovani, and half to his four daughters; the second gave his US holdings to Mantovani.

However, a Pesaro public prosecutor, Massimo di Patria, investigated allegations that Luciano Pavarotti was not of sound mind when he signed the will.

Luciano Pavarotti's estate has been settled "fairly", a lawyer for Mantovani said in statements after reports of a dispute between her and his three daughters from his first marriage.

Luciano Pavarotti posthumously received the Italy-USA Foundation's America Award in 2013 and the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music in 2014.