The world has lost one of its most powerful and beloved voices.

Legendary Italian opera singer Luciano Pavarotti, who brought opera to new heights through his association with fellow singers Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras as the Three Tenors, died of cancer on Thursday. He was 71.

The renowned tenor had been dealing with failing health for more than a year after being diagnosed and treated for pancreatic cancer in July 2006. Pavarotti received two more weeks of treatment in a hospital in Modena last month and went home on August 25.

Pavarotti spent his final hours at his villa in Modena, Italy with family and friends nearby. His manager Terri Robson told Reuters.

"His condition progressively worsened up to this morning," the singer's doctor Antonio Frassoldati told Agence France-Presse. "He was always totally conscious of the situation, he always sought to fight the disease...and he was very calm."

Reaction to the news has come from around the world, including from some of the many pop stars with whom Pavarotti collaborated over the years.

"Some can sing opera; Luciano Pavarotti WAS an opera," Bono wrote on his Web site. "I spoke to him last week...the voice that was louder than any rock band was a whisper."

"He was without doubt one of the most important tenors of all time," Carreras told the Swedish newspaper Expressen. "He was a wonderful man, a charismatic person--and a good poker player."

The Vienna State Opera raised a black flag in mourning and Pavarotti's hometown of Modena said it would name the city's theater after its native son.

London's Royal Opera House at Covent Garden said: "He introduced the extraordinary power of opera to people who perhaps would never have encountered opera and classical singing. In doing so, he enriched their lives. That will be his legacy."

Pavarotti leapt to superstardom when he, Domingo, and Carreras sang at Rome's Caracalla Baths during the 1990 soccer World Cup in Italy. Sales of opera albums shot up after the concert. The aria "Nessun Dorma" from Puccini's Turandot, which has the famous line "At dawn I will be victorious," became as familiar to soccer fans as the usual stadium chants.

Pavarotti sang "Nessun Dorma" in his final public performance, at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Turin in February 2006.

The funeral will be held at Modena Cathedral on Saturday, said the city's mayor Giorgio Pighi.

Pavarotti is survived by wife Nicoletta Mantovani, four daughters, and a granddaughter.