“A great Italian is dead,” said the vendor at my local news kiosk early this morning as the news of Luciano Pavarotti’s death in Modena spread. Italians buying their papers all nodded in agreement.

What about the scandal over Pavarotti’s divorce and his affair with his secretary, Nicoletta Mantovani, who became his much younger second wife? His tax problems with the Italian state? The disapproval of music critics over his duets with pop stars?

Shrugs all round. “Everyone has flaws,” said one customer. “But who cares — he was the successor to Caruso and Gigli. He showed the world that Italy and opera are inseparable.” And his successor? “I don't see one. Perhaps he hasn't been born yet.”

The mood today in Italy is one of grief, respect, admiration, affection, but not surprise. “He was dying for a long time, everyone knew it,” said a policewoman having her cappuccino in our local café. “But its still a great loss.”

The life of Pavarotti

Life and times of Luciano Pavarotti

Multimedia

• Video: the best of Pavarotti

• Audio: Neil Fisher on Pavarotti

• Pavarotti's career in pictures

BACKGROUND

• Home town hails Pavarotti - warts and all

• Comment: Pavarotti, the global reach of a pop star

• Luciano Pavarotti

Italian television ran extended news bulletins and apprecations.

The grief was perhaps greatest in Modena, near Bologna, known for its knitwear and ceramics and the nearby Ferrari Formula One test track — not to mention its fine, Romanesque cathedral. But for many locals Pavarotti, who was born in Modena, was — and is — their main claim to fame.

“The world has lost an exceptional musical talent, and Modena has lost one of its dearest sons, an important part of our history,” said Emilio Sabattini, president of Modena Province. “Modena was privileged to share the life and career of this extraordinary man.”

Despite his international fame, and “sometimes notoriety”, Big Luciano had “retained strong links with his native soil, which he loved”, Mr Sabattini said. Although he had homes abroad as well, he had shared the “modesty and generosity” of Modena people, as was shown by his contributions to humanitarian causes, not least through his Pavarotti and Friends concerts.

Venusta Nascetti, 71, who for years served Pavarotti at the café near his home in Modena, was among a crowd gathered in front of the house. “He loved us as we loved him. He had such a good humour. He never forgot us even when he became so famous.”

Pavarotti once said: “If you visit Modena you will find it difficult to leave. When I am asked where I live I say Modena, a small town half way between Florence and Milan.”

He happily admitted that the local food — Parmesan cheese, balsamic vinegar, ham and Lambrusco red wine — had contributed to his huge girth.

Franco Zeffirelli, the film and opera director, said that Pavarotti had been “not just a genius but a friend”. For the singer Katia Ricciarelli he was “not just a man with a platinum voice but a very intelligent man with an ironic spirit and great courage”.

Francesco Rutelli, the Culture Minister, said Pavarotti was “a giant of our time who has left an unfillable gap for all devotees of Italian music”, while Giorgio Pighi, the Mayor of Modena, said he would propose that the town theatre be named after Pavarotti.

In what La Repubblica said amounted to his testament, Pavarotti recently wrote on his website that he hoped to be remembered “as a singer of opera, an art form which found its highest expression in my country”. He said that “like many of my precedessors, including the great Caruso, I love the diversity of music written for the tenor voice”.

Times Recommends

• Please help: maimed children of war want their lives back
• Cabal seizes diamond riches to buy power
• White House gatecrashers got to the president