The extraordinary discovery came to light in 100 pages of court documents made public after lawyers had poured over his financial records for five months. 

Pavarotti was £8million overdrawn and owed more than £4million in mortgage payments at a bank in his home town of Modena, Italy. 

Various other banks held cash and stocks worth around £6million and 18 stage costumes are said to be priceless. 

Pavarotti’s daughters have contested his will since his death at 71 in September, when it emerged that he had left his £12million US holdings to his second wife, Nicoletta Mantovani.

Under Italian law the 37-year-old and their daughter Alice, five, receive 50 per cent of his estate and his grown-up daughters from a first marriage have the remainder. 

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