Pavarotti weds ex-secretary
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Pavarotti kisses his new bride, Nicoletta Mantovani, after their wedding.
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MODENA, Italy (Reuters) -- Opera star Luciano Pavarotti has married his ex-secretary Nicoletta Mantovani at a ceremony in northern Italy boasting an array of celebrities and "hosted" by the couple's baby daughter.
The pair, who tied the knot in the singer's home town of Modena on Saturday, have been together since the mid-1990s when Pavarotti left his first wife for Mantovani, who is half his age.
"Alice joyfully invites you to the wedding of daddy Luciano and mummy Nicoletta," read the invitation from the couple's 11-month-old daughter.
A host of stars, including Irish rocker Bono and Italian singer Zucchero, turned out for the wedding which was eagerly anticipated by Italian gossip magazines and television chat shows.
Crowds of local residents watched the bride arrive in a limousine decorated with pink flowers. Pink too were the Giorgio Armani dresses worn by the bride and her daughter.
On this occasion, Pavarotti, widely accredited with bringing opera to the masses, left the singing to fellow tenor Andrea Bocelli who performed the "Ave Maria" during the civil ceremony.
Spanish tenor Jose Carreras also attended the marriage in Modena's central theatre. Pavarotti, who turned 68 in October, dazzled audiences in the early 1990s singing alongside Carreras and Spaniard Placido Domingo as the Three Tenors.
But his career began 30 years earlier when the big Italian, immediately recognizable for his wide smile and jet-black hair, appeared in "La Boheme." His effortlessly rich, rolling voice has made him one of the world's highest-paid singers.
Pavarotti, who says he will retire in 2005, met Mantovani when she was still a student. Once his personal assistant, she was seen as the driving force for revitalizing his career after a hip replacement in 1998.
Their relationship became public when photographers pictured them kissing on a beach holiday and he separated from his wife of 37 years, Adua, with whom he had three daughters, in 1996.
Mantovani gave birth to Pavarotti's fourth daughter in January. Alice had a twin brother but he died in the womb.
Following the ceremony the newly-weds left the theatre under a cloud of confetti -- Pavarotti wearing his trademark Panama hat -- and headed to a vast marquee in Modena's central park where hundreds of guests were expected for the reception.
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