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Tributes have poured in for Luciano Pavarotti, one of the world's great tenors, who died at his home in Modena this morning.

The life of Pavarotti

Life and times of Luciano Pavarotti

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BACKGROUND

• Home town hails Pavarotti - warts and all

• Comment: Pavarotti, the global reach of a pop star

• Luciano Pavarotti

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• Comment: Pavarotti, the global reach of a pop star

• Luciano Pavarotti

Multimedia

• Video: the best of Pavarotti

• Pavarotti's career in pictures

To most, he will forever be known as the man who brought classical music to the masses with his performance of Nessun Dorma from Puccini’s Turandot, the anthem of the 1990 World Cup in Italy.

To serious fans, he was known for the unforced beauty and thrilling urgency of his voice. His vibrant high Cs and ebullient showmanship made him one the world’s most beloved tenors.

Placido Domingo, the Spanish tenor who sang alongside Pavarotti at the Three Tenors concerts along with Jose Carreras, said: "I always admired the God-given glory of his voice — that unmistakable special timbre from the bottom up to the very top of the tenor range. They threw away the mould when they made Luciano."

Pavarotti, who would have been 72 next month, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year, enduring surgery and five rounds of chemotherapy. He spent a fortnight in hospital last month, but went home to die. Doctors paid tribute to his calmness throughout his illness.

Giorgio Pighi, the mayor of Modena, said that he had visited the singer last week. "Pavarotti wanted to die at home," Mr Pighi said. "He was very worn down by the illness but he wanted to make conversation. We even spoke in the local dialect". He added that the town's theatre is to be renamed after its famous son.

Pavarotti's funeral will be held in Modena cathedral at 3pm on Saturday. His body will lie in state for mourners to file past at the cathedral from 8pm to midnight tonight, all tomorrow, and on Saturday till 1pm. Romano Prodi, the Italian Prime Minister, has postponed a visit to Slovenia to attend.

Terri Robson, his agent, said: "The Maestro fought a long, tough battle against the pancreatic cancer which eventually took his life. In fitting with the approach that characterised his life and work, he remained positive until finally succumbing to the last stages of his illness".

She added that she always felt sorry for young singers billed as the next Pavarotti, as his voice and his personality were unique and irreplaceable.

Earlier in his life, Pavarotti’s parents wanted him to have a steady job and for a while he worked as an insurance salesman and a teacher.

He started singing on the operatic circuit and his big break came thanks to another Italian opera great, Giuseppe di Stefano, who dropped out of a London performance of "La Boheme" in 1963.

Pavarotti once said: "Britain is one of the most important countries for me, in my career generally. This is where the international career really began.

"I sang with the Modena choir in Llangollen, an incredible experience for a young kid, and made my debut at Covent Garden in La Boheme. This period definitely was the true beginning of my international career."

The singer built a reputation as the "King of the High C's". On one night he earned 17 curtain calls after hitting nine impeccable high Cs in Tonio's aria "Ah! Mes amis", in a production of Donizetti's "La Fille du Regiment" that propelled him to opera stardom.

"It was incredible to stand next to it and sing along with it," said soprano Dame Joan Sutherland, who co-starred in the production.

But it was his performances at the World Cup in Italy in 1990, when he first teamed up with Domingo and Carreras as The Three Tenors, that brought him worldwide fame.

"The whole world will be listening today to his voice," said conductor Zubin Mehta, who directed the Three Tenors concerts in Rome and Los Angeles. "And that will continue. And that is his legacy."

"There is no doubt that he has been one of the most important tenors of all times," Carreras told reporters in Sweden.

He told how Pavarotti delighted in cooking gastronomic treats for his friends. "We have to remember him as the great artist that he was, the man with such a wonderful charismatic personality, very good friend and a great poker player."

Pavarotti formed a close friendship with Diana, Princess of Wales, and was so upset at her death he turned down an invitation to sing at her funeral.

One of his fondest memories was his Hyde Park concert in the summer of 1991. The televised event was the first classical concert in the park’s history.

Playing to around 150,000 people in the pouring rain, he looked to the front row and saw Diana with the Prince of Wales, beaming despite the bad weather. "It was one of the happiest days of my life," he said later.

As well as taking opera to the world’s football terraces, he also took it to the top of the pop charts, when The Essential Pavarotti became the first classical album to reach number one in the UK pop charts.

At a Royal Variety performance in Edinburgh, he reportedly demanded a fully-fitted kitchen to be built into his hotel suite.

His occasional diva-like tendencies did not detract from his charity work. His annual Pavarotti and Friends pop concerts raised millions for children's causes in Bosnia, Cambodia, Kosovo, Liberia, Afghanistan and Iraq.

He even collaborated with Diana on a series of charity projects, singing at a concert to help raise money for dying children in Wales, while she began helping with his favourite charity War Child - set up to help the children of war-torn Bosnia.

He appeared as much at home singing with pop stars as on the opera stage. This brought him criticism from serious music lovers, but he remained a much loved and popular performer with his superb voice and engaging smile, even though in his latters years the voice began to decline.

Elton John, who sang the duet Live Like Horses with Pavarotti in 1996, said: "It’s a sad day for music and a sad day for the world."

Emotion was running high today in Pavarotti's homeland. "It is a very difficult and very sad moment. We have lost a great tenor, a great singer, but I have lost a great friend," said renowned soprano Mirella Freni, who is also from Modena and who visited Pavarotti in hospital last month.

"There were tenors and then there was Pavarotti," said Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli.

Pavarotti wrote an autobiography, "I, Luciano Pavarotti," and made more than 90 recordings. He hit the headlines in the gossip columns by divorcing Adua Veroni, his wife and manager of 35 years and the mother of their three daughters, after he was photographed frolicking on holiday with his 26-year-old secretary Nicoletta Mantovani in 1996.

He married Mantovani in 2003, by which time their daughter, Alice, was nearly a year old. As he became ill however both families gathered round him. In July his daughter Giuliana told an Italian magazine he knew he was dying but looked forward to seeing his parents in the afterlife. Her later denial of the remark was clearly made out of tact.

"He was one of those rare artists who affected the lives of people across the globe in all walks of life," the Royal Opera House in London said in a statement. "Through his countless broadcasts, recordings and concerts he introduced the extraordinary power of opera to people who perhaps would never have encountered opera and classical singing, in doing so he enriched their lives."

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