The Italian opera star Luciano Pavarotti has died at his home in Modena aged 71.
The tenor, who helped give opera a new mass audience, had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year and underwent further treatment in August 2007.

His manager, Terri Robson, said Pavarotti died at 5am today.

"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," Mr Robson said in a statement.

Pavarotti was considered by some critics to have been the greatest tenor since Enrico Caruso.
He made his professional debut in 1961, as Rodolfo in Puccini's La Boheme at the opera house in Reggio Emilia. His most celebrated performance came at New York's Metropolitan Opera House where he hit nine high C's in Donizetti's La fille du regiment.

But Pavarotti reached a new global audience during the 1990 football World Cup when his interpretation of the Puccini aria Nessum Dorma was chosen as the tournament's theme tune.

It became an international hit. Later the Essential Pavarotti became the first classical album to reach No 1 in the UK charts.

The 1990 World Cup also saw the first of the hugely popular Three Tenor concerts that Pavarotti performed with Placido Domingo and José Carreras.

His most high-profile performance in Britain was the Pavarotti in the Park concert in a rain-sodden Hyde Park in 1991. His friend, Diana, Princess of Wales, was in the front row.

Like many opera stars, Pavarotti also had a reputation for exacting standards. At a Royal Variety performance in Edinburgh he reportedly demanded a fully fitted kitchen to be built into his hotel suite. He also frequently cancelled concerts at short notice.

But he also raised millions of pounds for good causes around the world in a number of charity performances.

Domingo today led the tributes to his fellow tenor.

"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," he said.

"I also loved his wonderful sense of humour and on several occasions of our concerts with José Carreras we had trouble remembering that we were giving a concert before a paying audience, because we had so much fun between ourselves."

The British tenor Russell Watson told GMTV that Pavarotti was "without question" the man who brought opera to the people.

"The World Cup was the Three Tenors with Pavarotti at the helm, with a very entertaining version of Nessun Dorma, in fact, it's now called 'Pavarotti's Nessun Dorma'," Watson said.

"His voice was so distinctive you only needed to listen to a couple of bars and you knew it was him, he had incredible power and control."

In a statement, the Royal Opera House said: "He was one of those rare artists who affected the lives of people across the globe in all walks of life.

"... 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. That will be his legacy."

Pavarotti gave farewell performances at the Royal Opera House in January 2002 when he sang in Tosca, despite the death of his mother in the final stages of rehearsals.

"The applause on those evenings was probably the most moving and heartfelt in the history of the Royal Opera," the statement said.

"He had a unique ability to touch people with the emotional and brilliant quality of his voice. He was a man with the common touch and the most extraordinary gift. He will be truly missed by millions."

Story from http://www.guardian.co.uk/