Minnelli gets knee surgery

Liza Minnelli was recovering Thursday at a Bologna hospital after undergoing surgery the day before for a kneecap she fractured in a fall in an Italian hotel.

The 57-year-old performer tripped Sunday in the hotel where she’d been staying while preparing for a benefit concert with Luciano Pavarotti in nearby Modena, the opera star’s hometown. Instead, she wound up singing a few bars from the hospital Tuesday night in a television hookup with Pavarotti and others at the benefit.

Riccardo Baldi, an official at Rizzoli Institute hospital, said doctors reported that the two-hour operation on the right knee went well.