Luciano Pavarotti

Luciano Pavarotti in concert at Madison Square Garden in 1984.


(Vic DeLucia/ The New York Times)

Luciano Pavarotti, the Italian singer whose ringing,

pristine sound set a standard for operatic tenors of the postwar era,

died on Sept. 6, 2007. He was 71.

The cause was pancreatic cancer.

In July 2006 he underwent surgery

for the cancer in New York and had made no public

appearances since then.

He was hospitalized again this summer and released on Aug. 25.

Like Enrico Caruso and Jenny Lind before him,

Mr. Pavarotti extended his presence far

beyond the limits of Italian opera.

He became a titan of pop culture.

Millions saw him on television and found

in his expansive personality,

childlike charm and generous figure a link to

an art form with which many had only a glancing familiarity.

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Early in his career and into the 1970s

he devoted himself with single-mindedness to

his serious opera and recital career,

quickly establishing his rich sound as the great male

operatic voice of his generation -- the "King of the High Cs,

" as his popular nickname had it.

By the 1980s he expanded his franchise exponentially

with the Three Tenors projects, in which he shared

the stage with Plácido Domingo and José Carreras,

first in concerts associated with the World Cup and later in world tours.

Most critics agreed that it was Mr.

Pavarotti's charisma that made the collaboration such a success.

The Three Tenors phenomenon only broadened

his already huge audience and sold millions of recordings and videos.

And in the early 1990s he began staging

Pavarotti and Friends charity concerts, performing side by side

with rock stars like Elton John, Sting and Bono

and making recordings from these shows.

Throughout these years, despite his busy and

vocally demanding schedule, his voice remained

in unusually good condition well into middle age.