Hundreds of people from Pesaro and tourists, the Maestro’s closest friends and loved ones, witnessed the unveiling of the bronze sculpture, which Pesaro 2024 – Italian Capital of Culture dedicated to “its” beloved citizen Luciano Pavarotti. “We were very keen on this moment – said the mayor Matteo Ricci -, Pesaro is a UNESCO Creative City of Music, birthplace of Gioachino Rossini and second home of Luciano Pavarotti”. The statue is located in Piazzale Lazzarini, a few steps from the Rossini Theatre, “it will become a space for music, where you can take a photo to carry in your heart forever.
I thank the Pavarotti family, from today Pesaro is even stronger thanks to its history that will never die.”
Deputy Mayor Daniele Vimini recalled the stages of the great tenor’s presence in Pesaro: “he performed for the reopening of the Rossini Theater in April 1980. It was he again, in 1986, who enchanted the audience at the Rof with a historic concert in the square del Popolo. And finally, in 1996, it was he who inaugurated the current Vitrifrigo Arena, in which the Rossini opera festival staged some of its latest greatest successes. He was very close to the city, I remember for example the solidarity towards the center of hematology of Muraglia and, above all, he was a singer in love with Pesaro, he never failed to point this out”. A love that from today will be remembered by the plaque on the marble base of the sculpture which quotes his words “I am an honorary citizen of a thousand cities in the world, but I feel like a true citizen of this one”.
192 centimeters high, the bronze work is made with the lost wax casting technique by Albano Poli. Present at the unveiling was his wife Nicoletta Mantovani, president of the Luciano Pavarotti Foundation with which the city has formed an intense bond: “For Luciano it would be, is, a special day because he is remembered by those who loved him so much”. A heartfelt thank you also from the tenor’s daughters Giuliana and Cristina Pavarotti. With them the deputy mayor of Modena, the tenor’s hometown, Gianpietro Cavazza and the director and set designer Pier Luigi Pizzi, protagonist of the Rossini opera festival for 40 years. The evening will see the presentation of the Pesaro music awards, a prize created by the Rossini symphony orchestra, in collaboration with the Municipality of Pesaro, to Pizzi himself, to the ItaliaFestival association, and to Pavarotti, in memory.
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