MODENA (Italy), Sept 8: Thousands of mourners led by top political figures and stars of the entertainment world attended the funeral on Saturday of opera legend Luciano Pavarotti.About 800 family members, friends and special guests packed Modena Cathedral for a mass for the venerated tenor, who died on Thursday at the age of 71.Among those present were Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, former UN chief Kofi Annan, U2 rock star Bono and Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli.

Pavarotti’s second wife Nicoletta Mantovani sat in front of the white maple coffin which was covered in sunflowers. Nearby were his three daughters from his first marriage.

Thousands more watched the ceremony on two giant screens set up in the main square outside.

Pavarotti’s recordings were played to the waiting crowds before the mass, which started with an “Ave Maria” taken from Giuseppe Verdi’s “Otello” and sung by the Bulgarian soprano Raina Kabaivandska.

The blind Italian singer Andrea Bocelli performed Mozart’s “Ave Verum Corpus”.

In a special message read at the mass, Pope Benedict XVI called Pavarotti “a great artist who through his extraordinary talent for interpretation honoured the divine gift of music”. Prodi said in a eulogy that Pavarotti “made music an instrument of life and against war” and called him an “impassioned ambassador for Italy”.

More than 100,000 people had filed past Pavarotti’s coffin in the cathedral in the two days before the service.

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano was among those to pay last respects on Friday.

“I wanted to testify personally to the emotion and the recognition of all Italians for the man who carried his voice and the purest image of our country throughout the world,” he said.—AFP