Opera legend Pavarotti dies at 71

 

Pavarotti had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year

Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti has died, his manager has announced.

The singer, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year, died at his home in the northern city of Modena, at the age of 71.

 

He had been admitted to hospital there with a fever on 8 August. He was released two weeks later following diagnostic tests.

 

Pavarotti had cancer surgery in July 2006 in New York, and had not made any public appearances since then.

 

His farewell tour was interrupted then to remove a malignant tumour. He underwent five bouts of chemotherapy in the past year.

 

Fellow tenor Placido Domingo said he had "always admired the God-given glory of his voice".

 

'Long, tough battle'

 

 

 

Although his wife had told papers he was fighting like a lion, it had been feared, seemingly correctly, that he had gone home to die among his friends and family, says the BBC's Christian Fraser in Rome.

 

Manager Terri Robson said in a statement that the tenor died at 0500 local time (0300 GMT) on Thursday.

 

"The Maestro fought a long, tough battle against the pancreatic cancer which eventually took his life," she said.

 

"In fitting with the approach that characterised his life and work, he remained positive until finally succumbing to the last stages of his illness."

 

Pavarotti enjoyed 40 years on the world stage and became one of the world's biggest-selling artists.

 

He brought a new audience to opera, particularly with his signature tune Nessun Dorma, from Puccini's Turandot, which became associated with the 1990 football World Cup.

 

'So much fun'

 

His performances with Domingo and Jose Carerras at this time - in the Three Tenors concerts - were seen around the world.

 

"We've reached 1.5 billion people with opera," Pavarotti told critics of the shows.

 

"If you want to use the word commercial, or something more derogatory, we don't care. Use whatever you want."

 

In a statement from Los Angeles, Domingo said he had fond memories of the Three Tenors shows.

 

"We had trouble remembering we were giving a concert before a paying audience, because we had so much fun between ourselves," he said.

 

Nessun Dorma was part of Pavarotti's final performance, at the opening of the Winter Olympics in Turin in February 2006.

 

from the bbc

 

 

Pavarotti could be number one in the albums in a weeks time as i guess decca (think it was them) will go ahead with their already compiled best of. its been in planning for over a year, and to go to rush release the moment when when he died..

dead stars always sell loads ......

 

not a fan of opera, sounds like long shouting..... but i must admit that 'nessun dorma' is a damn good track, especially sung by him.

 

 

gawd, id hate to be his coffin carrier!

I'm not a fan of opera, but he was a great performer.

My sympathies to his family and friends. R.I.P.

Nessun Dorma is currently at #58 on I Tunes.

I am not an opera fan, but Pavarotti had such an amazing voice. The clips that are being shown on the news gave me goosbumps. I have always loved his duet with U2 so much, and I thought the tribute Bono wrote about him today was great and worth posting. Such a shame he's gone. :(

 

06.09.2007

U2.com

Luciano Pavarotti 1935 - 2007

 

“Some can sing opera, Luciano Pavarotti was an opera.

 

No one could inhabit those acrobatic melodies and words like him. He lived the songs, his opera was a great mash of joy and sadness; surreal and earthy at the same time; a great volcano of a man who sang fire but spilled over with a love of life in all its complexity, a great and generous friend.

 

Great, great fun, The Pavlova we used to call him. An emotional arm twister if he wanted you to do something for him he was impossible to turn down. A great flatterer.

 

When he wanted U2 to write him a song he rang our housekeeper, Theresa, continually so we talked about little else in our house.

 

When he wanted U2 to play his festival in Modena, he turned up in Dublin unannounced with a film crew, and door-stopped the band. His life and talent was large but his sense of service to the weak and vulnerable was larger.

 

We wrote Miss Sarajevo for him. He had worked on the humanitarian crisis that was the war in Bosnia. We travelled together on a UN air force flight to Mostar... all of us earnest in hard hats, just about strapped into this industrial aircraft with the big man handing out parmigiano from Reggio Emilia, “the best cheese in the world" he kept saying… deadpan… to make us laugh.

 

In Pesaro, in his summer house, he lived an almost bohemian life with a recording studio set up in an out house - but did all his vocals in his bedroom... there was a hammock hung between two marine pines for a siesta. He liked to eat, sleep and then warm up his vocals though I remember more eating than warming up. When we first recorded with him I left a stone heavier than I arrived.

 

Intellectually curious, couldn’t stick to his own generation - loved new ideas, new people, new song forms.

 

A sexy man whose life lit up again when he fell in love with Nicoletta and as he watched Alice play in the yard. He loved all his daughters so much.

The sadness of losing his only boy his only silence.

 

I spoke to him last week... the voice that was louder than any rock band was a whisper. Still he communicated his love. Full of love.

 

That's what people don't understand about Luciano Pavorotti. Even when the voice was dimmed in power, his interpretive skills left him a giant among a few tall men.”

 

Bono

gawd, id hate to be his coffin carrier!

:rofl:

 

So he died! :o Shame really, he had the best controlled opera voice I've ever heard.

What a loss, I was quite shocked when I heard it.

May he rest in peace.