Pavarotti no longer sings his way into the news

Now 65 and nearing the end of what has been a brilliant career, it seems the world's best-known tenor no longer uses his vocal chords to attract attention.

On Friday, a judge in his hometown of Modena ruled that he should stand trial on charges of tax evasion. Pavarotti will be asked whether it is true that he fiddled his tax declarations during a six-year period between 1989 and 1995. The accusations are part of a long list of tax-evasion charges.

Pavarotti last made the headlines in November, when he kicked up a fuss for being turned away by a luxury hotel in Padua. Despite his easily recognisable rotund shape, an over-zealous receptionist refused to allow him into his pre-paid room for lack of identification.

The tenacious tenor had also been the talk of the town, this time on the other side of the Atlantic, only a few weeks earlier. A sold-out audience of 5,000 that had paid as much as 1,000 dollars to hear the Italian sing were left disappointed by Pavarotti's performance at the Taj Mahal Casino Resort in Atlantic City, prompting owner Donald Trump to demand a refund.

And gossip papers went wild at the end of the summer, when his former wife Adua Veroni lashed out at Pavarotti, branding him a miser who is incapable of admitting his own mistakes.

While he arranges a wedding with his 29-year-old secretary, Pavarotti and his former life-long partner are expected to meet again in court later this year to settle a four-year legal row over alimony payments.

Pavarotti had more financial woes last spring, when he was accused of using his Monte Carlo residency to dodge paying billions of liras to Italian tax authorities.

He eventually agreed he would pay 24 billion liras (12 million dollars) to the Italian finance ministry to settle that case and avoid standing trial.

Pavarotti's vast fortune has been built on a unique singing talent that has given him immense popularity during a highly successful career that has spanned nearly 40 years. He has made more than 90 records, five of them Grammy Award winners and one, based on "The Three Tenors" concert of 1990 in the company of Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo, has become the best-selling classical album of all time.

But as pension-age approaches, personal woes increase, along with the criticisms.

Recently, after a less-than-brilliant performance at the Metropolitan in New York, his manager was forced to dismiss rumours that Pavarotti was about to retire. It did not stop critics from suggesting that he should.

"Big Luciano" once compared himself to an alpine flower, whose strong determination allows it to flourish on inhospitable rock.

He will need a very tight grip on himself to avoid slipping more into the gossip columns and scandal news pages rather than the cultural sections of the world's media.

(kil/dpa)