Opera legend Luciano Pavarotti has confirmed plans for a Farewell Celebration world tour. The 40-date trek will take the 69-year-old Italian tenor to venues throughout North America and South America, Europe, Asia, New Zealand and Australia.

"I am extraordinarily lucky to have been given the opportunity to experience one of the most amazing careers it is possible for an opera singer to have," the singer says in a statement posted on his official Web site. "This tour will be very emotional -- I am looking forward to traveling around the world, meeting many of my colleagues and friends I have made throughout my career, and performing for audiences for the last time."

Specific tour dates have not yet been announced for the tour, which will be produced by United Kingdom-based producer Harvey Goldsmith, who has produced tours and concert events with Pavarotti since 1985.

"The farewell tour will cover many of the great cities of the world and some new venues which will be both interesting and magical," Goldsmith says. "I want to make the tour something that both Pavarotti and his audience will remember as befitting the greatest tenor of our time."

In March, Pavarotti gave his final operatic performance at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, playing Cavaradossi in Puccini's "Tosca."