Opera star Di Stefano dies
2008-03-04 11:54
Rome - Italian tenor Giuseppe di Stefano, who famously duetted with opera diva Maria Callas, has died. He was 86.
Di Stefano died on Monday morning at his home near Milan, his wife Monika Curth told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
"He had his hand in mine then he appeared to fall asleep peacefully. I then realised he had stopped breathing," Curth said.
She said her husband had never recovered from a brutal beating he suffered in 2004 when he was ambushed by robbers while he was preparing to drive from his villa in Diani, a coastal resort near Mombasa, Kenya.
Born in Catania, Sicily, Di Stefano studied singing in Milan and made his debut in the city's famed La Scala opera house in 1947.
Soft-sweet vocal tones
The following year he went on to sing in Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto at New York's Metropolitan Opera, a performance which won him wide acclaim.
Celebrated for his soft-sweet vocal tones, by the 1950s Di Stefano was considered one of the best singers in the world.
He won a gold Orfeo, one of Italy's top music awards.
However the strain of performing began to take a toll on his voice and his operatic career was virtually over by the mid 1960s.
Di Stefano can be heard in some of Maria Callas' most famous recordings including complete versions of the operas Lucia Di Lammermoor, I Puritani, Il Trovatore and La Boheme. - dpa
- SAPA