Addio, Luciano! – amid tears and recriminations
Sep 13th, 2007 by Paul Moor
If anyone reading this still thinks riches mean happiness, just consider the fate of the great (in more senses than one) operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti, who died last week, and think again. He left an estate estimated in the neighborhood of half a billion (repeat: Billion) dollars – i.e., $500,000,000 – and an interview published in the Italian newspaper La Stampa, which he allegedly wanted published, revealing a man secretly miserable in his private life.
The present posthumous internecine inter-familial battle focuses on four combatants, his three daughters by his first wife – Lorenza, Cristina, and Giuliana in one corner – and their challenger in the opposite corner, his second wife Nicoletta. Last month, in the terminal phase of his pancreatic cancer, Pavarotti, nicknamed The King of the High “C”s, changed his will in favor of those three daughters – but now Nicoletta feels she ought to get more.
His far-flung assets include several homes, for instance in New York, Monte Carlo, and his Italian hometown Modena. His occasional Manhattan pad, an apartment on the upper East Side he used only occasionally, alone has a value estimated at $11,000,000.
An English translation of that article from La Stampa has appeared in Edinburgh’s leading newspaper The Scotsman. In it, Dr. Lidia La Marca, described as a close friend (and wife of the conductor Leone Magiera) emphasizes that Pavarotti wanted what she has to say made public after his death – and what she says, available unabridged by clicking here, amounts to quite a bombshell, including Pavarotti’s speculation that his personal wretchedness would eventually make him wind up by shooting himself.
