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Luciano Pavarotti left debts of £7m, estate filings show

Luciano Pavarotti's reign as opera's biggest star did not bequeath the inheritance his family might have imagined. The Italian tenor died almost £7 million (US$13.9 million) in the red, his estate has revealed.

The debts emerged after weeks of careful combing through bank accounts and shareholdings held by Pavarotti, who died last September of pancreatic cancer, aged 71. They were filed in a court in Modena last week by notary Giorgio Cariani.

Pavarotti's fortune had previously been estimated at £200 million. Rumors of debts surfaced in October but were played down.

But the full picture, laid bare in a 100 page document, is no rosier. Numerous accounts are listed at seven banks, with one 11 million euros (US$16.7 million) overdraft at the Siena branch of the Monte dei Paschi di Siena bank. Another account, at the bank's Monaco branch, contains just US$0.49.

The document does list property owned by the star, including three villas and an apartment in Italy, as well as an apartment in Monaco, but does not list their value. That could come under scrutiny as his inheritance is carved up between Pavarotti's widow, Nicoletta Mantovani, and his three daughters by his first marriage, Lorenza, Cristina and Giuliana.

Mantovani has played down speculation over a potential battle.

"There is an atmosphere of fair play and correctness within Luciano Pavarotti's family and among their lawyers over the inheritance of the maestro's estate," said Anna Maria Bernini, a lawyer representing Mantovani and her daughter by Pavarotti, Alice, who was born in 2003.

Under Italian law, 50 percent of Pavarotti's estate will be split equally between his four daughters, with a further 25 percent given to his widow. Pavarotti allocated the final quarter to Mantovani, who worked as his secretary during his first marriage. He left his wife of 35 years, Adua, to live with her in 1996.
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