Pavarotti, Luciano  ( born October Oct. 12, 1935 , Modena, ItalyItalian operatic lyric tenor, one of the most popular of his time, noted for his mastery of the highest notes of a tenor’s range.

Pavarotti graduated from a teaching institute in Modena (1955) and then taught elementary school for two years. He studied opera privately, mostly in Mantua. After winning the Concorso InternationaleInternazionale, 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 he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, and from 1971 he was a regular performer there. Pavarotti became known to a wider wide public than opera connoisseurs; his concerts, recordings, and television appearances—which provided ample opportunity to display his ebullient personality—gained him a wide popular following. Pavarotti is He toured the world, performing to 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 his many prizes and awards were five Grammy Awards and a Kennedy Center Honor in 2001.

Pavarotti was considered one of the finest bel canto opera singers of recent timesthe 20th century. Even in the highest register, his voice is was noted for its purity of tone. His most notable operatic roles included the duke Duke in Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto (1851), Tonio in Gaetano Donizetti’s La Fille du régiment (with 1840; a part notable for its demanding sequence of high C’sCs), Arturo in Vincenzo Bellini’s I puritani (1835), and Radamès in Verdi’s Aida (1871). In 2004 Pavarotti gave his final performance on the operatic stage, appearing in Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera Housealthough he continued to sing publicly for several years thereafter.