Pavarotti says he’ll return

Luciano Pavarotti says he has no intention of letting the curtain fall yet on his singing career despite recent surgery for pancreatic cancer.

“I have every intention of returning to singing,” the 70-year-old tenor said in an interview published Monday in the Italian daily newspaper La Stampa, given after he returned to his New York home from the hospital.

“I want to finish my tour. I can’t give precise dates because I’ll have to discuss it with the doctors, but I think I’ll start again next year,” said the man considered the greatest tenor of his times by many opera buffs.

Pavarotti was preparing to leave New York earlier this month to resume his farewell tour when doctors discovered a malignant pancreatic mass. He underwent surgery in a New York hospital, and his remaining 2006 concerts were canceled.