“People think that I am disciplined. It’s not discipline, it is devotion. There is a big difference.“

At around nine years of age, young Luciano had his first musical experiences in his city’s choir, the Corale Gioachino Rossini, together with his father. After a normal and carefree childhood filled with a typical interest in sports (especially soccer), Pavarotti earned his teaching diploma from the Scuola Magistrale and became an elementary school teacher, then faced the dilemma of which path to take. » Read more

The great public and critical success of that first performance opened the world’s doors to the young tenor. Conductor Tullio Serafin invited him to sing the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto in Palermo. Pavarotti’s future career was taking shape.
A long series of engagements, including international ones, followed that first year of activity. In 1963 Pavarotti made his debut at the Vienna State Opera; a few months later came his debut at the Royal Opera House in London, where he stood in for an unwell Giuseppe Di Stefano as Rodolfo. Pavarotti often recalled this fortunate circumstance as his true baptism on the international opera stage, which brought him fame and recognition from audiences and critics.

1965 marked his debut, on April 28, at La Scala in a Bohème conducted by Herbert von Karajan with staging by Franco Zeffirelli; the following year, Pavarotti had the great honor—as he liked to say—of being invited by Karajan for Verdi’s Requiem Mass in memory of Arturo Toscanini. Those years were rich in successes for Pavarotti. Claudio Abbado conducted him in a historic production of Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi at La Scala, and Gianandrea Gavazzeni in Verdi’s Rigoletto. His debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York took place in 1968 with Bohème, and in February 1972 another performance of La fille du régiment earned him a record 17 curtain calls. The world acclaimed him as the perfect interpreter of Italian bel canto, in Verdi roles and in warhorses such as Bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly. Pavarotti scored another major success in Rome, on November 20, 1969, singing I Lombardi with Renata Scotto. The Modenese tenor debuted as a soloist in a recital at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri, on February 1, 1973, as part of the College’s Fine Arts Program.

In the early 1980s, his successes multiplied: Pavarotti was acclaimed in Vienna in a Bohème conducted by Carlos Kleiber (January 1985) alongside Mirella Freni as Mimì; in an Aida conducted by Lorin Maazel (April–June 1984) where he sang Radamès; he was an extraordinary Gustavo in Un ballo in maschera conducted by Claudio Abbado (October 1986); and at La Scala in 1985 an unforgettable Aida conducted by Maazel and staged by Luca Ronconi, unsurpassed in significance. The aria “Celeste Aida” received a standing ovation lasting many minutes, and the next day newspapers headlined “Celeste Luciano.”

The album Essential Pavarotti, released in 1982, was the first classical album to reach the top of the UK pop charts, remaining there for five weeks.

Pavarotti reunited with Mirella Freni as his partner in San Francisco Opera’s production of La Bohème in 1988. In 1992, La Scala featured Pavarotti in a new, and controversial, production of Don Carlo by Zeffirelli, conducted by Maestro Riccardo Muti.

Pavarotti’s fame grew even further worldwide in 1990, when he performed in The Three Tenors concert—together with Plácido Domingo and José Carreras—on the eve of the World Cup Final at the Baths of Caracalla in Rome. His rendition of the aria “Nessun Dorma” from Puccini’s Turandot became the BBC’s soundtrack for the FIFA tournament, and the recording turned into the best-selling classical album of all time. Building on the success of the original 1990 concert, the Three Tenors gave additional concerts during subsequent World Cups: in Los Angeles in 1994, Paris in 1998, and Yokohama in 2002.

In 1992, combining his longstanding passion for horses with his inexhaustible curiosity and desire to take on new experiences, Pavarotti launched the annual equestrian event Pavarotti International; alongside it, he created the concert Pavarotti & Friends, a reunion of major artists from different genres—from opera to pop and rock—who performed duets with the tenor in support of charitable causes, primarily benefiting children. These events raised millions of dollars to provide medical aid and fund social-educational projects in Bosnia, Cambodia, Kosovo, Guatemala, Liberia, and Tibet, as well as for Afghan, Angolan, and Iraqi refugees.

In 1996, at the age of 61, Pavarotti made his final operatic debut in Umberto Giordano’s Andrea Chénier before the audience of the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Pavarotti gave his last performance in an opera, Tosca, on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in New York on March 13, 2004. At the end of the performance, the moved audience seemed unwilling to let him go, recalling him to the stage 11 times.

On February 10, 2006, the tenor sang "Nessun Dorma" at the Opening Ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy: it was his final performance, followed by the longest and loudest ovation of the evening from the international audience.

Luciano Pavarotti passed away at his home in Modena on September 6, 2007, surrounded by his family’s love.