Il Resto del Carlino<\/a> last week. \u201cIt\u2019s just not right.\u201d\n <\/p>\n\n Pesaro\u2019s mayor, Andrea Biancani, came under fire after posting a doctored image of the famous tenor skating, complete with a hockey stick, on Facebook on November 23. In the post, he suggested that skaters #daiUnCinqueAPavarotti\u201d or to \u201chigh-five\u201d the statue.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe smile, the humor, the ability to see the bright side of things. Let\u2019s never lose it,\u201d he wrote on the post after Mantovani first complained.\n <\/p>\n
\n Biancani explained that the city decided to inaugurate the rink to kick off the holiday season as planned despite the bad tone.\n <\/p>\n
\n The mayor\u2019s post, which is still online, garnered several critical comments, with concerns about safety, should people try and high-five the statue, as well as concerns about poor taste.\n <\/p>\n
\n Biancani has now formally apologized to Mantovani and a spokesman for the city hall told CNN Tuesday that it was not their intention to offend the singer\u2019s family or his legacy.\n <\/p>\n
\n The spokesman said that the installers mistakenly built the rink around the statue, instead of next to it.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThere was no intention of disrespect,\u201d the spokesman told CNN on behalf of the mayor. He added that the presence of Pavarotti embedded in the ice was not part of the original plan for the Christmas rink.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI was assured that Pavarotti wouldn\u2019t be touched or incorporated into the ice rink floor,\u201d he told local media.\n <\/p>\n
\n While officials say it isn\u2019t possible to dismantle the rink or move the statue at this stage, they have built a short wall around it, separating it from the rest of the rink. However, skaters can still touch the monument if they pass close to the edge.\n <\/p>\n
\n The Pavarotti statue was inaugurated in April 2024 to honor the late singer and his wife who had a holiday home on the Adriatic Coast nearby.\n <\/p>\n
\n Pavarotti is considered one of the greatest tenors of all time and sold more than 100 million records worldwide.\n <\/p>\n
\n His collaboration with Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras as The Three Tenors produced the biggest selling classical album in history.\n <\/p>\n
\n Pavarotti\u2019s last public performance was during the 2006 winter Olympics in Turin.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rome \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Italian officials are on thin ice after a skating rink was built around a bronze statue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-323311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}