Luciano Pavarotti

Luciano Pavarotti was born in Modena (sharing the same birthplace with soprano Mirella Freni) in 1935. With his father being an excellent amateur singer, this encouraged Pavarotti to pursue a career as a tenor. His first performances were at small Italian opera houses but his rise to fame was swift and soon he was singing with soprano Joan Sutherland. In 1965 he sang at La Scala for the first time alongside Mirella Freni in La boheme (their later recording of which is an acknowledged classic). Acclaim came from the United States in 1972 with his performance in Donizetti's La fille du regiment where he famously made light work of the notorious 'high C's' passage in the opera.

After a successful operatic career Pavarotti reached new heights of popularity with Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo at the Three Tenors concert, performed during the football World Cup in Germany in 1990. This resulted in the biggest selling classical album of all time. Pavarotti's performance of the aria 'Nessun dorma' from Puccini's opera Turandot was also a worldwide hit. Thereafter Pavarotti performed regularly to stadium sized audiences and recorded a series of successful albums. He also performed concerts for humanitarian causes. Pavarotti was on a worldwide retirement tour when he was diagnosed as having pancreatic cancer in 2006. The tenor bravely fought a painful battle against his illness but eventually succumbed in September 2007. The outpouring of grief at the announcement of his death and the pomp of his subsequent funeral drew parallels with the death of that other great tenor, Enrico Caruso, in 1921.

Key Works: Donizetti: La elisir d'amore, La fille du regiment, Puccini: La boheme, Turandot, Verdi: Ernani, Rigoletto, La traviata, Il trovatore

Key Artists: Richard Bonynge, Monserrat Caballé, Mirella Freni, Herbert von Karajan, Joan Sutherland