"It was the neatest thing," Mauriello said of the unexpected call from Pavarotti, who simply said, "I'd like you to come to my wedding."
The next day, an official invitation was delivered to Mauriello by overnight express from Alice Luciano, the famous newlywed's year-old daughter. "Alice would like to invite you to her parents' wedding," it began.
There had long been talk about the official pairing of Pavarotti, 68, and his longtime lover and producer Nicoletta Mantovani, 34, who have lived together since 1996, especially after Alice's birth in January and Pavarotti's late September announcement on "Larry King Live!" that the nuptials likely would take place by year's end.
With only two weeks to make travel plans, reschedule appointments and pick a wedding gift for the man who has everything - a couple of times over - Mauriello wasn't sure he would be able to swing it.
"It's Luciano Pavarotti - you're not just going to write him a check and give it to him for his wedding," Mauriello said. "We only had two weeks' time. I really didn't know if we could do it, but how could I not?"
So Mauriello worked a full day Dec. 12 at his College Avenue practice, MidState Orthopaedics, took an overnight flight from Newark, N.J., to Milan with his own fiancee and arrived in Italy on the big day.
They rushed to Modena's Teatro Comunale in time for the ceremony. Outside the theater was a swarm of armed security officers, paparazzi, onlookers and 300 or so guests making their way down a cobblestone walkway to the wedding.
Ironically, a few months earlier, Pavarotti had told Larry King of the wedding, "When we are going to be married, we will be alone."
The bride and her daughter wore rose-colored Armani gowns and pale pink ballet slippers and arrived in a limousine decorated with pink flowers. The London-based IDMC gospel choir and a children's choir from Modena performed. Guests included fashion designers Donatella Versace, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, Italian soccer star Alessandro Del Piero, and singers Elton John and Lou Reed.
"It was a beautiful, civil ceremony," Mauriello said, adding that guests were provided every accommodation, including private box seats at the theater and travel arrangements. "The moment we left the church, I was on the cell phone with employees telling them, 'You'll never believe this! (Andrea) Bocelli sang "Ave Maria!" ' "
If the ceremony was eye-and-ear candy, the tented reception for 600 at a nearby park was a feast for all the senses, replete with clowns and a carousel to entertain the 100 younger guests in attendance.
On the menu: cream of potato soup with crispy leeks, cannelloni filled with ricotta and mascarpone with almonds and bacon, veal bocconcini with artichokes on a vegetable tortino - and a different fine wine with every course. The 5-foot wedding cake was possibly the best Mauriello has ever tasted.
U2's Bono and The Edge took the stage at one point and sang a James Brown medley.
"My god, the food, the wine..." Mauriello sighed. "It was the most fantastic regal affair I'd ever been to. Every place (setting) had 11 glasses. There were utensils there I'd never seen before."
Mauriello said he had time to talk with Bono about politics and The Edge about an upcoming U2 album and tour and admitted he gushed just a little over the band.
"I told The Edge, "'The Joshua Tree changed my life, man.'"
Mauriello confessed the whole affair tempted him to tie the knot a little early, too.
"We were contemplating just hitting a chapel while we were there," he said. "But I'm from an Italian family, and my brother's a priest. If I didn't have my brother marry us ... oh, my."
A mere 28 hours after arriving in Milan, Mauriello and his fiancee were back on a plane getting ready for the upcoming work week.
"We spent a total of 28 hours in Italy, but it was so pumped with energy," Mauriello said. "Our expectations were completely met. It was great."
So just how do you get an invite to an opera legend's nuptials? Put him back together again.
Mauriello, a native of northern New Jersey, first met Pavarotti in July 1998, when the physician was completing a prestigious joint-replacement fellowship at New York City's Lenox Hill Hospital, where the maestro was having joint-replacement surgery. Mauriello gained Pavarotti's confidence after performing his surgery and then was offered a chance to help the tenor recover as he toured Europe for six weeks of performances. In time, Mauriello also operated on Jose Carreras, another voice of the Three Tenors fame.
Though Mauriello's two years of Italian-language classes were long in the past, doctor and patient got to liking one another. They continued to talk by telephone every couple of months, and Mauriello combined trips to visit his sister in Milan with trips to see the opera great at his summer villa on the Adriatic Sea.
Large photos of Mauriello and Pavarotti carrying on at the singer's 40-acre Italian compound line the walls of Mauriello's office. Dressed in Hawaiian-style shirts and shorts, the pair is shown yukking it up in one shot and wiling away a sunny Italian day in the next.
"He's actually a regular guy," Mauriello said. "Sometimes when I see him I'll say, 'It looks like you gained weight.' And he says, 'Well, so did you!'
"I think he likes to be treated like that. All his life he has been revered as a maestro, which he is. But we're on an equal level. He appreciates my work, and I appreciate his."
Meanwhile, the occasion has caused quite a stir with patients at Mauriello's 3-year-old practice, who have continually asked if he attended his friend's star-studded wedding, if he saw the wedding ring ("it's a chunk") and what Mauriello gave the couple as a wedding gift (a picture frame from the Lennox outlet). But a better question now might be whether the maestro will attend the physician's wedding.
"That's a good question," Mauriello said. "Maybe yes, maybe no. But I'm extremely private, and I think it will be just family and a few friends."
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