Opera singers are notorious for their multiple retirements and Saturday night was at least officially only the end of his operatic

Opera singers are notorious for their multiple retirements and Saturday night was, at least officially, only the end of his operatic career. As a New York Times critic put it, he performed in Tosca “with one foot in Puccini’s world and the other in his own spotlight”. This is the Pavarotti who would make vast pots of pasta for journalists and then polish off most of it himself, the Pavarotti who made the tabloid newspapers as he ditched his wife for his much younger secretary, and suffered as one of the twin babies he sired last year died.The audience for this Pavarotti is ready to forgive him anything. He, too, came closest to the public perception of what an opera singer should be, with his gargantuan proportions, his toothy smile, his ever-present white handkerchief wiping away the spittle of all the throaty romantic passion, and his voracious appetites – for life, food and the lithe younger women he referred to as his harem.This second Pavarotti was the one that had audiences beating down the doors of the Met for tickets to his final three performances, the one who had long since left the rarefied elitist world of opera and turned himself into a superstar. They rose to their feet when he made his first appearance, and amped up their approval into a roar after his third-act aria, E lucevan le stelle.When the opera ended they clamoured for no fewer than 10 curtain calls, including three personal bows by the master tenor.When it was clear that Pavarotti had made his final thank-you the applause sharpened into minutes of rhythmic clapping.

It was a crowd that did not want to see him go.In truth, there were two Pavarottis on display at the Met, the opera house that he has favoured like no other since his New York debut in 1968. The first was the critics’ Pavarotti, the soaring talent who outstayed his welcome. They would have been happier if he had called it a day in 1998, or even earlier.The second Pavarotti was the singer as celebrity, the icon of popular culture who has claimed a unique hold on the world’s collective imagination since he sang Nessun dorma with his fellow tenors Placido Domingo and Jos?arreras at the 1990 World Cup.Of the three, Pavarotti was always most willing to promote himself as a popular artist, happy to share a stage with Sting, C?ne Dion or Elton John. Saturday night marked the passing of a operatic colossus, and the packed audience was determined to give him the send-off that his glittering 40-year career deserved. His once silken voice is no longer flexible or capable of racing up the scale to the high Cs, and as an interpretation of Cavaradossi, the ardent young painter who falls in love with the wrong woman and ends up before a firing squad, it was not so much an acting job – although that was never Pavarotti’s strong point – as an exercise in immobility.But no matter. He came, he sang, he wobbled a lot, but he expired on cue, with the help of a pile of beanbags to hold his famous girth and limit the strain on his arthritic knees. For more information, contact 020-7352 0052; .

At the moment, says Waterhouse, Facing the World is still small and can deal with maybe half a dozen cases a year. The charity is a very tight ship, with just one paid co-ordinator to bring the volunteers together.”Our eventual vision is not that we will treat 500 or 600 cases a year ourselves,” he explains. “With research and training we would like to establish a worldwide network, so that if someone calls from, say, Bolivia, we can refer them to a facility in Mexico or Chile.”Both men are fathers. Kelly has two sons, Theodore, three, and Otis, 10 months, with his partner, the actress Natasha McElhone. He would not remove the blanket over her head till he was alone with Kelly – because he was afraid his little girl would be stoned in the street. Hadisa was missing most of the bones in one side of her face, and Kelly could do nothing on the spot; but she was the first child to be treated by Facing the World, which launched last year.Over the last 15 years craniofacial surgery has become increasingly sophisticated; though what can be achieved still depends on the seriousness of the child’s original condition. Sometimes the surgery is so successful that there is no indication that anything was ever amiss.