LONDON - Late operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti’s widow revealed that the musician kept their four-year-old daughter by his side when he was on deathbed.

Nicoletta Mantovani said the Italian singer loved their child Alice “to the nth degree” and wanted to be with her “until the very last moment”.

“I knew that Alice was the best medicine for Luciano and I knew that for our daughter it would be important, even in future, to know she had been part of this,” Times Online quoted her as saying.

She further revealed that despite suffering from severe pain due to tumor, Pavarotti continued to teach Alice how to paint.

Mantovani insists Alice, who was three back then, understood her father’s physical condition well.

She even made him eat food, saying: “This evening I’m daddy’s girlfriend and I’m giving him food.”

Mantovani made the revelation in letter to Lisa Galli, a psychologist and close friend, who published it in her book ‘When Life Changes Colour’.

Pavarotti’s passed away in September 2007 at the age of 71. (ANI)