MILAN, Italy Hundreds of people gathered Thursday night in Modena’s main piazza to pay final respects to Luciano Pavarotti, whose vibrant high C’s and ebullient showmanship made him the most beloved and celebrated tenor since Caruso.
The crowd applauded in a sign of respect as pallbearers carried the casket into Modena’s cathedral, where a funeral is scheduled for Saturday. The tenor died early Thursday at the age of 71 after a yearlong battle with pancreatic cancer.
While Pavarotti moved the world with what one admirer called “the last, great voice” of Italian opera, his legacy went beyond the opera house. The tenor collaborated with classical singers and pop icons alike to bring opera to the masses, rescuing the art from highbrow obscurity in the process.
In many ways, Pavarotti fulfilled the public’s imagination of what an opera star should be. He often wore a colorful scarf and a hat, be it a fedora or a beret, and while he didn’t always have a beard, it was hard to imagine him without it. His heft as well as a restaurant on his property in Modena demonstrated his gourmet appetite.
But above all, his crystal clear voice, prized for its diction, made him a celebrated tenor. “Pavarotti was the last great Italian voice able to move the world,” said Bruno Cagli, president of the Santa Cecilia National Academy in Rome.
And the world was fittingly paying tribute. Inside Modena’s Piazza Grande, hundreds of people gathered for the first evening of public viewing. Police on horseback stood at attention, and city officials stood at the cathedral door as mourners were held back behind fences.
Authorities are planning for a massive outpouring of grief: giant television screens are to be set up near the cathedral where Italian Premier Romano Prodi, among others, will pay their final respects.
Within hours of Pavarotti’s death, Modena authorities had posted information on the city Web site detailing the extraordinary public transport services that would be put in place to help get mourners from parking lots to the city center for Saturday’s service.
In his heyday, Pavarotti was known as “the King of the High C’s” for his ease at hitting the top notes. The Venezuelan soprano Ines Salazar recalled hearing him warm up backstage and thinking it was a recording. Even when critics complained he had lost his voice, audiences didn’t mind.
While opera lovers treasure recordings with soprano Joan Sutherland, Pavarotti slipped into the CD collections of the hipper set mixing notes with Elton John, the Spice Girls, Sheryl Crow and Liza Minnelli, among others.
He was the best-selling classical artist, with more than 100 million records sold since the 1960s, and he had the first classical album to reach No. 1 on the pop charts.
U2 frontman Bono said Pavarotti was “a great volcano of a man who sang fire but spilled over with a love of life in all its complexity.”
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