Dignitaries spanning the worlds of politics, culture and the arts, along with thousands of Italians, gathered at Modena Cathedral in Italy Saturday to give their final ovation to famed tenor Luciano Pavarotti.

An Italian flight team flies past Modena's cathedral after the funeral for Luciano Pavarotti on Saturday.
(Antonio Calanni/Associated Press)

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, U2 front man Bono, Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli and Modena Mayor Giorgio Pighi were among those who packed into the invitation-only ceremony, joining Pavarotti's widow, Nicoletta Mantovani, his first wife Adua Veroni and his four daughters.

Members of Pavarotti's beloved soccer team, Juventus, were also reportedly in attendance.

"Italy is sad today but it is also proud of him," Prodi said during the service.

"Here, in the cathedral of his hometown, Italy expresses its gratitude to him."

The televised Roman Catholic mass, presided over by Archbishop Benito Cocchi, included thanks to many Italian and other dignitaries who had made their way to Modena, as well as a message of condolence from the Pope.

The attendance of so many showed "the esteem, the affection and the gratitude that universally surrounds the great artist," Cocchi said in his homily.

"The death of Luciano Pavarotti has made us feel more impoverished," he added. "The maestro was and will always be a symbol for our city."

Music punctuated the service, from traditional hymns sung by a choir to those from the professional world, including an opening performance of Verdi's  Ave Maria by Bulgarian soprano Raina Kabaivanska and Italian star Andrea Bocelli singing Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus.

Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti, seen here after his last opera performance at the Met in New York in 2004, was celebrated the world over for his charisma and iconic voice.
(Tina Fineberg/Associated Press)

Organizers also played a video recording of Pavarotti and his father, Fernando, singing a duet of the hymn Panis Angelicus at the cathedral in 1978, after which the approximately 800 mourners at the funeral service gave the maestro a lengthy standing ovation.

Another ovation followed as Pavarotti's coffin was led out after the service to the strains of his signature aria Nessun dorma. Pilots from the precision flight team of the Italian Air Force also staged a flyover of the cathedral.

Officials estimate that tens of thousands of mourners have filed through the streets of Pavarotti's hometown since his death on Thursday at the age of 71, after battling pancreatic cancer for more than a year.

The maestro's body, dressed in his trademark white tie and tails and clutching his signature white handkerchief, remained on view to the public until shortly before the ceremony.

During the funeral service, the white coffin bearing his body was covered in flowers, including his favourite sunflowers.

Throngs of fans remained gathered outside the cathedral to watch Saturday's ceremony on giant screens and listen through loudspeakers or met in the town's main piazza, from where recordings of the maestro boomed for the past few days.

Though opera experts consider the 1960s to the 1980s as Pavarotti's operatic heyday, Modena's beloved son truly became renowned around his world for performing with colleagues Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras as the Three Tenors.

The trio's hugely popular performances packed arenas around the globe and are attributed with widening the appeal of opera to the general public.

Pavarotti is also hailed for his many fundraising concerts held in support of a variety of charities worldwide.

Pavarotti was buried at Montale Rangone cemetery near Modena.

With files from the Associated Press