Italian tenor Salvatore Licitra dies at 43 from injuries in scooter accident
Italian tenor Salvatore Licitra, who rose to fame after substituting for Luciana Pavarotti at the Metropolitan Opera in 2002, died Monday at the age of 43, the result of severe injuries from a motor scooter accident on Aug. 27 in his native Sicily.
It has been reported that the crash may have been caused when the singer experienced a brain hemorrhage. He was not wearing a helmet. After surgery at a hospital in Catania, he went into a coma.
Mr. Licitra's career was launched in 1998 at the Teatro Regio of Parma, but it was his unexpected Met debut four years later in "Tosca," a last-minute sub for Pavarotti, that put the tenor on the international map.
Although Mr. Licitra ...
did not meet all the expectations generated by his Met triumph, he won considerable admiration for the remarkable power and Italianate richness of his voice.
Locally, Mr. Licitra left a memorable mark, starring in Washington National Opera productions of "Andrea Chenier" in 2004 and "Tosca" the next year. His voice had a truly electrifying effect on those occasions. The tenor was only a little less impressive in the company's production of "Un Ballo in Maschera" last year and a concert version of "Cavalleria Rusticana" in 2008; his vocal and dramatic intensity still hit home.
Here are examples of Salvatore Licitra's all too brief career:
