Big P

Luciano was born on October 12, 1935 in Modena (Italy). He was the son of a baker and amateur tenor, Fernando Pavarotti, and his wife, a cigar factory worker, Adele Venturi. The young Pavarotti developed an interest in farming and football (goal keeper) and working briefly as teacher and insurance sales person.

In 1954 Arrigo Pola (tenor and vocal teacher) was approached by Luciano's father who wanted to know whether the tenor voice was good enough for training as a professional opera singer. Pola later reported that he knew, after an approximately 15-minute audition, that he was standing against a superb talent.

Pola decided to help the boy and his family, who didn't have much money, by giving Luciano daily voice lessons free of charge. For the next three years Luciano studied with Pola almost every day.

Pavarotti later said: where it not for my dear teacher Arrigo Pola, I would not be what I am today.

In the spring of 1963 Joan Sutherland and her husband, the conductor Richard Bonynge, were informed about a Dublin performance of Verdi's Rigoletto with a young Pavarotti singing the title role of the Duke of Mantua. She was in seek of a young tenor taller than herself to take along on her tour to Australia.

I've found the tenor we're looking for she told her husband.

With his commanding physical presence, Pavarotti proved ideal. The two sang some forty performances over two months, and Luciano later credited Sutherland for the breathing technique that would sustain him over his career.

Luciano became the favorite tenor for Joan and Ricky (Richard Bonynge) and this relationship continued in the record studio.

A unique lifelong relationship was founded and when they performed together, it was seldom anything less than an experience of a lifetime. They not only had phenomenal voices, but they used them to touch people's hearts in their own unique way.

In the mid-1980s, Pavarotti returned to two opera houses that had provided him with important breakthroughs, the Vienna State Opera and La Scala. Vienna witnessed him playing Radames in Aida conducted by Lorin Maazel.

By the end of the 1980s, Luciano's fame was universal. His extensive discography ensured that his voice was heard in every corner of the world and his televised appearances at major houses like the Metropolitan Opera in NYC received record viewing figures. When he sang Rodolfo, his début role, on March 15 1977 the performance was live telecasted. He achieved the largest audience ever for an opera in the US.

Increasingly Pavarotti and his management looked for opportunities to reach out to new and ever-larger audience, since the potential for audience-building in an opera house is limited. Stadium events became part of his musical life: a selection of popular arias, a handful of lighter numbers and a couple of overtures and Pavarotti's magic could be spread to tens of thousands, not merely a couple of thousand.

Luciano became even better known throughout the world in 1990 when his rendition of the aria "Nessun dorma" from Puccini's "Turandot" was taken as the theme song of the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy. The Three Tenors Concert (with fellow tenors Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras) in Rome on the eve of the World Cup final was the start of a series of such events that virtually became a brand in their own right. Among many other cities which hosted the tenors were LA (1994), Paris (1998) and Yokohama (2002).

On his own Luciano entertained an audience of 150,000 in London's Hyde Park in 1991, the first time a classical concert had been given in the Park. In 1993, the scale grew even larger when he appeared before an audience of 500,000 on the Great Lawn of New York's Central Park.

Luciano began a 40-city 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. The tour culminated in Pavarotti's 70th birthday party which looks like it was a boisterous affair, not uncharacteristically for the flamboyant tenor.

His final Met performance took place on March 13 2004 with a performance of Puccini's "Tosca". When the curtain fell on the third act, the packed house gave him a 15-minute standing ovation, including several minutes of insistent rhythmic clapping when it appeared that he would not return to the stage. After the third of 10 curtain calls, a large red and white banner on the second tier was unfurled and spotlighted. It read, "We Love You Luciano," with a heart-shaped "o" in "Love". The banner was from the Met.

On February 10 2006, the Maestro sang "Nessun Dorma" at the 2006 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Turin - it was his final performance. In the last act of the opening ceremony, he received the longest and loudest ovation of the night from the crowd.

Early on the morning of September 6 2007, after a year-long battle with cancer, he died at his home in Modena. He was 71.

The Maestro's funeral was held at Modena Cathedral. The Frecce Tricolori, the aerobatic demonstration team of the Italian Air Force, flew overhead, leaving green-white-red smoke trails. After a funeral procession through the centre of Modena, Pavarotti's coffin was taken the final ten kilometers to Montale Rangone, a village part of Castelnuovo Rangone, and was interred in the family crypt.