Pavarotti to Sing at Opening Event

Operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti will sing Friday night at the opening ceremony of the 2006 Winter Games.

Pavarotti, 70, has appeared in halls, arenas and stadiums around the world during his career of more than 40 years. He is perhaps best known to U.S. audiences for his stage and televised appearances with Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo, “the Three Tenors.”

Pavarotti’s appearance here had been a closely held secret.

Also performing Friday at Olympic Stadium, a renovated 33,000-seat facility, will be the ballet corps from Milan’s renowned La Scala dancing to techno-rave music.

Organizers had announced several months ago that the ceremony would in part feature a futuristic flavor, with inline skaters racing around a stage at up to 40 mph as flames shoot out of specially designed helmets.

The show Friday night is being produced by Marco Balich, a native of Venice, Italy, and a veteran producer of rock ‘n’ roll shows.

*

Alarmed by a wave of protests aimed at the opening ceremony, the president of Italy appealed Tuesday for calm and “responsibility” on the part of angry citizens.

President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, in a national television address, said the Games represented “a chance to confirm our capabilities, to boost development.”

He added, “The image of the Alps and the Piedmont valleys, the belfries and the towers of our country, will be under the scrutiny of hundreds of thousands of spectators. We must not miss this opportunity. It is a responsibility for all of us.”

Demonstrators in recent days have assaulted Olympic torchbearers and forced the relay to change its route.

Protesters, including anti-globalization activists, environmentalists and leftist groups, announced plans for additional rallies in Turin on Thursday, when the torch enters the city, and again Friday as it is carried to the opening ceremony.

Some of the protesters object to the Olympics because they see them as an elitist event dominated by corporations spending large amounts of money. Others are part of a longer campaign against the construction of a high-speed rail line through the Susa Valley, north of Turin, which is also a site of several Olympic events. Opponents say it will cause irreparable harm to the environment and Alpine landscape.

Meanwhile, in Rome, the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi won parliamentary approval for a funding bill aimed at covering a $96-million shortfall in the Winter Games budget. Some of the money will be raised through scratch-card lottery tickets. Officials have said the Games will cost about $4 billion.

*

President Bush included Iran in his “axis of evil” speech four years ago and said in his State of the Union address last month that Iran was “defying the world” by developing nuclear technology.

But the U.S. and Iranian flags flew side by side when Turin organizers staged another in a series of Olympic village receptions. In what U.S. chef de mission Jim McCarthy called a “quirk of scheduling,” the three nations included in an afternoon welcoming ceremony were the U.S., Iran and Armenia.

The handful of U.S. athletes on hand stood at attention for the Iranian national anthem, and vice versa. McCarthy extended his hand to the leaders of the Iranian delegation, and members of the U.S. women’s hockey team posed for pictures with Iranian athletes.

“I think it’s great,” three-time Olympian Angela Ruggiero said. “This is what the Olympics are all about, all the nations coming together and playing sports.”

*

For the first time in his young life, Jorden Flowers can hear.

He was born three years ago without the nerve that transmits sound from the ear to the brain. As his mother, Vonetta, traveled the world while competing for the U.S. bobsled team, she learned of Vittorio Colletti, an Italian doctor who treats the condition by implanting electrodes into the brain. The procedure has not been approved by U.S. authorities for use on children.

Colletti performed the surgery Dec. 28. He activated the device two weeks ago. The volume level will be increased periodically, and speech therapy will be required, Vonetta said.

As she shoots for her second consecutive gold medal, she and her husband, Johnny, cheer their son’s progress.

“He has to learn about his hearing, but we’re excited that he’s responding to sound,” Vonetta said. “He is more vocal now. We get very emotional just knowing that he’s trying to talk to us because he hears us talking to him.”

Jorden has a twin brother, Jaden, who hears normally.

Times staff writers Alan Abrahamson and Bill Shaikin in Turin, and Tracy Wilkinson in Rome, contributed to this report.