Dying? I'm on the mend, insists Pavarotti

As if to prove his point, the 71-year-old tenor was pictured in his garden - in a wheelchair but very much alive.

Pavarotti, who is battling pancreatic cancer, declared: "I'm doing fine. I am getting better. What do you want me to say ? That I'm dead? Well I'm not. At the moment I am thinking of the nice fish supper I am going to have tonight."

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He spoke out after his daughter Giuliana, 40, was reported to have said he was near death. She was quoted saying: "He knows he is going to die soon and often speaks of his greatest desire, to meet his parents again and finally find peace."

Pavarotti's agent Terri Robson then said Giuliana's quotes had been misinterpreted and that the singer was "very positive".

Giuliana herself said she had been horrified at what had been reported.

"I was tricked into saying those things," she insisted. "In reality my father is very strong and responding well. His humour is upbeat, he is doing physiotherapy and he is not thinking about dying."

Finally, Pavarotti intervened in a manner reminiscent of Mark Twain - who is said to have remarked on hearing that a newspaper had published his obituary: "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

Giuliana's original interview was published in Italian glossy weekly Diva and Donna which also printed several photographs of Pavarotti.

Despite his insistence that he was fine, the pictures appeared to support claims that his weight had dropped from more than 20 stone to around 11.

He fell ill while in New York last July. Following surgery, he has been recuperating on his estate near Pesaro, on Italy's Adriatic coast.

A source close to Pavarotti said: "He was not best pleased to hear that his own family were writing him off but he has taken it all with a pinch of salt. He had a good laugh about it."