In the hours after Luciano Pavarotti died Thursday, musicians and political leaders were remembering a man who charmed everyone with his charisma and his powerful voice.

Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti waves to the audience during the curtain call of Puccini's Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in this March 13, 2004 file photo.
(Tina Fineberg/Associated Press)

"I lost a very close friend. He's a man with which I had always a wonderful relationship," said fellow tenor José Carreras, speaking to reporters at an airport in Germany.

"He has been, of course, one of the greatest tenors ever, one of the most important singers in the history of opera."

Carreras, who performed with Pavarotti and Placido Domingo as a member of the famed Three Tenors group, said that Pavarotti's death isn't easy to accept, even if it wasn't completely unexpected.

Pavarotti died at his home in Modena, Italy, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 71.

Pavarotti's influence touched musicians beyond the world of opera. Irish rocker Bono said Pavarotti was such a charmer that he was impossible to turn down.

"Some can sing opera; Luciano Pavarotti was an opera," Bono, lead singer of U2, said in a statement. "He lived the songs. His opera was a great mash of joy and sadness, surreal and earthy at the same time."

Bono and Pavarotti performed together several times to raise money for war victims in Iraq and Bosnia and for other charitable causes.

Pavarotti, a United Nations Messenger of Peace, was a vocal supporter of the UN's work with refugees.

Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general of the UN, said in a statement Thursday that Pavarotti made a "profound" contribution to people around the world, especially children affected by war.

Ban said Pavarotti generated millions of dollars in humanitarian aid.

With files from the Associated Press