Pavarotti, Luciano

Legendary opera singer Luciano Pavarotti [Credit: Petros Giannakouris/AP]

After winning the Concorso Internazionale, a singing competition, he made his professional operatic debut in Reggio Emilia, Italy, in 1961. He then played in opera houses throughout Europe and Australia. In 1968 Pavarotti made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, and from 1971 he was a regular performer there. He toured the world, performing for as many as 500,000 fans at a time in outdoor venues, as a solo performer or as one of the “Three Tenors” (with Plácido Domingo and José Carreras). Among Pavarotti's many prizes and awards were five Grammy Awards and a Kennedy Center Honor in 2001. His most notable operatic roles included the Duke in Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto, Tonio in Gaetano Donizetti's La Fille du régiment (a part remarkable for its demanding sequence of high C's), and Radamès in Verdi's Aida. With William Wright he wrote Pavarotti: My Own Story (1981) and Pavarotti: My World (1995). In 2004 Pavarotti gave his final performance on the operatic stage. His last public appearance was in the opening ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, where he sang his signature aria, “Nessun dorma,” from Giacomo Puccini's Turandot.