If he was singaporean, he only enjoyed 9 yrs of his CPF money... sighhh
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Legendary Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti, who brought opera to the masses, died on Thursday after a battle with cancer. He was 71.
"The great tenor Luciano Pavarotti died today at 5 a.m. (11 p.m. Wednesday EDT) at his home in Modena," his manager Terri Robson said in a statement. "The Maestro fought a long, tough battle against the pancreatic cancer which eventually took his life.
Although his health had been seriously failing for a year, the death of the genial, bearded tenor known as "Big Luciano" saddened everyone from stars, impresarios and critics of 'bel canto' to fans who could barely afford tickets.
"There were tenors and then there was Pavarotti," said Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli.
While past opera greats often locked themselves in a gilded, elitist world, television viewers around the world heard Pavarotti sing with pop stars like Sting and Bono in his famous "Pavarotti and Friends" benefits for the needy.
"He was one of those rare artists who affected the lives of people across the globe in all walks of life," London's Royal Opera House at Covent Garden said in a statement.
Venusta Nascetti, a 71-year-old who used to serve Pavarotti coffee in a local bar when he was a teenager, remembered him as being "full of joy, he had a happy spirit".
"He always loved us just like we loved him," the frail old woman, wearing dark glasses to hide her emotion, told reporters outside Pavarotti's house where she went to pay her respects.
The tenor's funeral will take place in Modena on Saturday.
Although Pavarotti began singing in a church choir aged nine his passion was soccer and he wanted to go professional. But his mother convinced him to be a teacher, which he did for two years until realizing his vocation and starting singing lessons.
In 2003, Pavarotti married Nicoletta Mantovani, an assistant 34 years his junior and younger than his three daughters, after an acrimonious divorce from Adua, his wife of 37 years.
As Nicoletta was bearing twins, the pregnancy ran into complications and their son Riccardo was stillborn.
He is survived by Nicoletta, their four-year-old daughter, Alice, as well as three daughters from Pavarotti's first marriage.
(Additional reporting by Silvia Aloisi, Philip Pullella, Stephen Brown and Phil Stewart, Jeremy Lovell in London)
© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved.
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