(AP)
Updated: 2007-09-08 21:05

Members of the Juventus soccer team - Pavarotti's favorite - were to carry the flag into the cathedral at the start of the service, which was being celebrated by Modena Bishop Benito Cocchi. Following the service, the Italian air force's acrobatic pilots were to fly over the cathedral, Robson said. The pope was expected to send a message of condolence, Vatican officials said.

The tenor will be buried in Montale Rangone cemetery, near Modena, where members of his family, including his parents and stillborn son Riccardo, are buried.

Pavarotti's classical career, with his imposing presence, emotional depth and boyish, charming ease all adding to his technical prowess, was the stuff of opera legend. Mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli, presenting a new CD in Rome on Friday, recalled the first time she heard Pavarotti sing, many years ago, at the Metropolitan Opera House. "I said to myself: God does exist," Bartoli was quoted by the news agency Ansa as saying.

But his legacy reached beyond the opera houses to reach the masses, working with fellow opera stars and pop icons alike.

These far-from-the-opera house performances, including memorable nights under the stars at Rome's ancient Baths of Caracalla with Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo, in the "Three Tenors" concert, rescued musical art from highbrow obscurity.

He is survived by his second wife, Nicoletta Mantovani, their daughter, Alice, and three daughters from his first marriage, to Adua Veroni, who had long managed his multimillion-dollar business affairs.

The fact that Pavarotti - a divorced man who had a child out of wedlock - was given public viewing and a funeral in the cathedral spurred some debate here. A Modena parish priest, the Rev. Giorgio Bellei, told Corriere della Sera that the move amounted to "a profanation of the temple." Other critics noted that last year the church refused to grant a religious funeral to a paralyzed man who had a doctor disconnect his respirator.

Funeral director Gianni Gibellini said Bellei should have "kept his mouth sewn shut" and that the Modena bishop had approved the funeral plans.

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