Luciano Pavarotti is beating cancer and back in the recording studio, his wife Nicoletta Mantovani said Tuesday.
Contradicting a recent magazine interview where Pavarotti's daughter said the great tenor was practically wheel-chair-bound, had lost a lot of weight and was basically waiting to die, Mantovani said:
"You never can tell with this disease but I think Luciano has done it, he's recovered.
"He's finishing his fifth cycle of chemotherapy, he hasn't lost a hair from his head and he hasn't lost any weight," she told reporters at the Italian entertainment event Ischia Global Fest.
The fest will devote a tribute to Pavarotti Tuesday evening featuring singers Andrea Bocelli and Tony Renis and other performers, producers and friends.
US singer Sheryl Crow, who recently beat breast cancer, on Monday wished Pavarotti well in his fight.
Mantovani, Pavarotti's second wife and former secretary, went on to say that Pavarotti, 71, was "making a record of holy arias in which he will duet with other artists".
"It's going to be a beautiful surprise, but I can't say anything more about it".
Mantovani added that Pavarotti's cancer had been in some ways a blessing in disguise because it had reunited a family which suffered major strains during the tenor's acrimonious divorce from his first wife Adua.
"The illness has reinforced all the ties," she said.
Pavarotti had a tumour removed from his pancreas in New York a year ago.
Last week the singer's daughter Giuliana said in a magazine interview that her father 'knew' he was approaching death and had reconciled himself to the prospect.
"He knows he's going to die soon and often speaks of his greatest desire: to meet his parents again and finally find peace," she told Diva e Donna.
Pavarotti was pictured in his Modena home in a wheelchair, allegedly 30 kg lighter than in his last concert appearances.
Guliana said her father still gave singing lessons but spent most of his time at the card table with childhood friends and playing with his four-year-old daughter Alice.
As well as Giuliana, Pavarotti has two other daughters by his first wife.
The pancreas operation last July interrupted Pavarotti's two-year worldwide farewell tour, which may not now be completed.
Pavarotti gave his last performance in an opera at the New York Metropolitan Opera on March 13, 2004 for which he received a 12-minute standing ovation for his role as the painter Mario Cavaradossi in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca.
In February 2006, at the opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics in Turin, he brought the house down with his trademark Nessun Dorma aria.
