Pavarotti marries long-time girlfriend

Tenor Luciano Pavarotti married his longtime partner and producer Nicoletta Mantovani on Saturday in a celebrity-studded wedding and a song-filled, champagne and caviar reception that featured clowns and a carousel.Hundreds of fans gathered outside Modena’s main theater, the Teatro Comunale, to watch the bride, dressed in a dusty rose-colored Armani gown and toting a bouquet of pink roses, arrive for the nuptials with her father. She waved to the crowd before heading inside.The couple’s year-old daughter, Alice, was the official hostess of the wedding, and like her mother, wore a rose Armani dress and little pink ballet slippers, Pavarotti’s publicist Terri Robson said.Pavarotti, 68, and Mantovani, 34, have been living together since 1996, when their love story took gossip columns by storm. Mantovani had worked for Pavarotti during summers when she was a university student, and she now produces his Pavarotti & Friends concerts as well as other events.‘The church of a singer’Pavarotti had said days before the wedding that for him, getting married in a theater was appropriate because “I’m getting married in the church of a singer.”For the ceremony, the tenor wore a three-piece dark suit, red tie and white hat.During the wedding, which was performed by Modena Mayor Giuliano Barbolini, Andrea Bocelli sang the “Ave Maria,” and the IDMC gospel choir of London, a children’s choir of Modena and a chamber music orchestra performed.The guest list included Sting and his wife, Trudy Styler, Bono and his family, designers Donatella Versace and Alberta Ferretti, actress Gina Lollobrigida, tenor Jose Carreras and Italian soccer star Alessandro Del Piero.After the ceremony, well-wishers tossed rice on the smiling newlyweds as they ducked out of the theater and into a waiting car.Lavish receptionThe couple and their 500 or so guests continued the festivities in a tented reception at a nearby park, where they were greeted with flutes of Dom Perignon champagne and hors d’oeuvres of caviar, mozzarella and tomato and salami and prosciutto, witnesses said.At one point during the reception, Bono took to the microphone and sang, the witnesses said.For dinner, guests dined on cream of potato soup with truffles; cannelloni pasta stuffed with ricotta cheese, almonds and bacon; veal with artichokes and vegetables; and fruit and ice cream. Italian barolo and brunello wines, as well as a selection of different breads, rounded out the meal, which was capped by an “operatic” sized wedding cake, the witnesses said.About 100 children were also on the guest list, and they had their own special meal and were entertained during the reception by clowns, a carousel and puppet shows.The bride and groom are planning a long honeymoon, but only after Pavarotti gets through two upcoming performances: a concert in Moscow in a few days and a charity gala in Leipzig, Germany on Thursday.Pavarotti has three children from his marriage to Adua Veroni, who managed his multimillion-dollar business affairs.