Pavarotti

After moving to New York, she found success, travelling the world and performing for the likes of the singer Prince, Pavarotti and Ronald Reagan.

Today there are about 60 opera houses across Italy - a global record - while opera singers such as 20th-Century tenor Luciano Pavarotti have been venerated as major stars.

He started out at UPI and Vanity Fair and eventually wrote profiles of Luciano Pavarotti and Sills, among others, for The New York Times Magazine.

His mother took him to performances and his Italian-born father, who ran a restaurant, serenaded diners with Luciano Pavarotti recordings.

And her well-publicized quarrels with general managers and co-stars — including Luciano Pavarotti and the Metropolitan Opera impresario Rudolf Bing — likewise fueled the idea that she had an irrepressible temperament that destined her for the stage.