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The regretted tenor’s widow, Nicoletta Mantovani Pavarotti, recently decided to sue two of her dead husband’s friends because they made accusations at her address and discussed in public the state of their marriage after his death.

Nicolleta says she will not tolerate such affirmations, and if they were to stop she wouldn’t have filled a lawsuit,but by the look of things she is quite sure the two female friends of the great tenor will continue if not legally stopped. The insults at her address were seen by Nicolleta as an opportunity to make even more money, as she asks for $22 from each woman.

Lidia La Marca and Franca Corfini Strata appeared on national television and clearly stated their beliefs about the way Mantovani treated Pavarotti, even on his hospital bed. All Italy knows she wants nothing more but money, no lawsuit could make the world see her with different eyes. What kind of a wife goes to her dieing husband and asks him to sign papers cause if he doesn’t he won’t be allowed to see his 4 year old daughter anymore?
No matter what Mantavani might say or do, in my mind she is just a money obsessed woman that doesn’t know to stop her pursuit in order to keep things decent.

Pianist Anthony Spiri has well distinguished himself with his sensitive and probing interpretations of the keyboard music of the sons of Johann Sebastian Bach, having recorded C.P.E. Bach for Camerata and Orfeo and a particularly outstanding outing with W.F. Bach on the Oehms Classics label, previously noted here. This Arte Nova recording of Johann Christian Bach’s Op. 17 sonatas was actually made before all of the others in 2000; however, it has not been previously seen in the United States as it appeared shortly after Arte Nova lost its American distribution owing to the shuttering of BMG’s classical division in North America. In this case, later is certainly better than never, as this is as excellent an extrapolation of the virtues of Johann Christian’s keyboard music, highly valued in its day but neglected in ours, as has ever appeared.

Spiri does this music no harm by projecting it in the idiom commonly associated with Mozart’s piano sonatas as played on the modern piano; the point of reference is well-taken for modern ears. It is very helpful in getting the gist of why Johann Sebastian Bach’s last-born son attracted such fame and fortune during his brief, but brilliant career as the standard bearer of Italian style galant in Greater Europe.

There we have it, the man’s just died a few days ago and the females will not let him rest in peace. The women in the life of Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti could be in for a battle over his 250 million fortune. While the opera superstar’s three adult daughters, who have sided with their mother – Pavarotti’s first wife Adua Veroni following their divorce in 2000, but recently had a rapprochement with their father, have lined up on one side, his second wife Nicoletta Mantovani’s on the other. The man’s dead and has left some goodies behind and now there’s going to a fight for that fortune with the ladies slugging it out to claim the money, that’s the story with all these people. If Britney has a fortune then Kevin wants it all for himself and when Pavarotti has left something behind the ladies are trying to lay their hands on it. Everyone’s so greedy that not an inch of barren land would be left if it could be theirs.

The funeral service for Luciano Pavarotti has begun in his hometown of Modena, Italy, with singers Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras and U2 rocker Bono among the stars in attendance. i was surprised that none of the cable news covered the funeral. All I saw was less than 1 minute snippets on the news. What a great icon for the world. Rest in peace…I am sure the world would have liked to see the great musician for one last time before the last rites took place. I personally would have stopped all my work to have a chance to see the great one last time, but these media people have robbed us and instead they are all so interested in showing us the MTV VMAs which turned out to be a crap show. The VMAs are slowly turning out to be a damn squib show and the usual announcements of the winners and some artist will come on stage, shake his booty and turn around and leave. And mind you, for those interested in the VMAs this act takes place every year but a person like Pavarotti comes only once in a lifetime. Hope we understand the importance of a person and a musician like him.

Opera legend Luciano Pavarotti has died, his manager has announced. He was 71. The Italian tenor was said to be in a “very serious” condition on Wednesday night, after falling unconscious. A local TV news station in Modena, northern Italy, reported Pavarotti was on his death bed after suffering kidney failure. Man this person is eternal and whether his body and soul is not with us any more his legacy will continue to live with us for ever. I know this is a hard time for his family and followers but the memories that he has left behind for all of us is something to be cherished for a long time after all of us are dead too.

Luciano Pavarotti is getting a new government award for his work promoting Italian culture in his country and abroad.

The 71-year-old tenor, who has been fighting pancreatic cancer, is the first recipient of the prize, the Culture Ministry said Tuesday. No date has been set for the award ceremony.

“This prize fills me with joy and pride,” the ANSA news agency quoted Pavarotti as saying Wednesday

Last month, the star was hospitalized for two weeks in his hometown of Modena with high fever. The tenor had cancer surgery at a New York hospital in July 2006 and has made no public appearances since then.

Milan’s La Scala opera house, where Pavarotti first performed over 40 years ago, said it would join a Modena theater in organizing a singing contest dedicated to him.

“It is a precious chance to pay homage to the career of Luciano Pavarotti, a symbol of Italian music in the world,” La Scala said in a statement.

Pavarotti welcomed the idea, saying he hoped the contest would “open the door to young people.”

“I’ve always thought that our real value, our real strength lies in the enthusiasm, the devotion and the encouragement we can transmit to the young,” Pavarotti told .

Bryn Terfel has pulled out of his highly anticipated appearance in the Royal Opera’s production of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle, citing “a particularly stressful family situation” involving one of his children.

The Welsh bass-baritone was to have sung Wotan/The Wanderer in the performances scheduled for next month. It was supposed to have been his first performance in a complete Ring Cycle.

“I have had a particularly stressful family situation involving one of my children this summer which has affected the time I had put aside to prepare for this challenging role,” Terfel said in a statement carried by the Opera’s Web site. “Having begun rehearsals it is clear to me that I would not be able to perform at the standard I would wish to.”

The nature of the problem was not disclosed. The Times of London newspaper reported that the performance had been sold out for more than a year, with some tickets for the entire four-opera cycle going for as much as $1,610.

“The Royal Opera expressed shock and surprise at Bryn Terfel’s cancellation, acknowledging the disappointment it will bring to audiences who were looking forward to seeing him perform in a complete Ring Cycle for the first time,” the company said on its Web site.

The company said Terfel would be replaced by award-winning singer Sir John Tomlinson, with whom Terfel had been due to share the role.

Terfel sang Wotan for the first time in “Das Rheingold” and “Die Walkuere” during the 2004-5 season in the Royal Opera’s production by Keith Warner.

He also is slated to sing Wotan in the Metropolitan Opera’s performance of the Ring cycle, scheduled for 2012.

A specially written ballet has been performed in Milan to mark the 10th anniversary of fashion designer Gianni Versace’s death.
Thanks Gianni, With Love was put together by French choreographer Maurice Bejart, for whom Versace designed many stage costumes.

About 1,500 guests, including Versace’s favourite models, attended the show at the La Scala opera house.

The designer was murdered outside his Miami mansion on 15 July, 1997.

His sister and muse Donatella, who took over the Versace fashion empire, created several costumes for the ballet.

“It is the most beautiful gift I could do for him,” she said.

“He was a genius and a simple exhibition of his designs would have been banal.

“Fashion wasn’t enough for him, he also loved art, music, history and dance.”

Bejart, 80, worked with Versace on a dozen ballets from 1984 until the designer’s tragic death.

Shortly after his death, he described his friend as a “true artisan” and compared him to the “great creators of the Renaissance - always on a quest for novelty and beauty”.

Bejart’s two-part tribute, known as Grazie Gianni con Amore in Italian, paid homage to the shows he designed with Versace, including Barocco Bel Canto and La Mort Subite (Sudden Death).

Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber has said he sees no reason why a Little Britain musical adaptation would not be a success.
Speaking on The Graham Norton Show, Lloyd Webber said that his children were fans of the show and would not watch anything else.
“The only thing my kids wanted to do was see Little Britain. Forget Monty Python now”, he told the presenter.
When asked whether he thought a Little Britain musical would be a good idea, the composer replied: “Why not? It’s a great idea, I can’t see any reason why not.”
Norton and Lloyd Webber both front the hit BBC1 show Any Dream Will Do and the topic of conversation soon shifted to the casting process for the next Joseph.
“You can only do a TV casting show with very few shows because it’s got to be about something everyone knows”, Lloyd Webber said.
“People have to have a real feeling that they could choose that person … in that last minute of each show it’s a nightmare … [whatever happens] we’ve got a seriously good contest.”
The West End mogul also revealed that he was working on the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, although his new cat caused a bit of a stir during the composition process.
Lloyd Webber said: “I was trying to write some new music, he [the cat] got into the grand piano, jumped onto the computer and destroyed the entire score for the new Phantom in one fell swoop.”