Renowned soprano Irene Salemka McGillivray has passed away at 86. The Canadian soprano died earlier on Sunday, August 27, 2017, in her home in Collingwood, Ontario. According to baritone Peter McGillivray, his aunt had been battling illness and dementia for many years. Born in small-town Manitoba, Salemka spent her formative years in Weyburn, Saskatchewan and Regina before becoming an international opera {…}
Famed bass Enzo Dara passed away at his home in Mantua on August 25, 2017. Born on Oct. 13, 1938, he would develop a storied career that saw him dominate in the buffo repertoire starting with his 1960 debut as in “La Bohème” in Fano. His big breakthrough came in 1967 when he stepped into the role of Don Bartolo {…}
Pierre Vernes, the founder of the Paris Opera Competition has passed away. Verne created the competition back in 2010, which has turned into a biannual showcase with over hundreds of submissions and a final gala event that decides the winner. At the start of the competition’s history, concerts were used every other year in place of a formal competition. Vernes, {…}
Tenor Emile Belcourt has died after a brief illness. The tenor, born in Laflèche, Saskatchewan passed away on August 3, 2017, after a lengthy career at the English National Opera. Born on June 27, 1926, Belcourt started learning the violin and singing at music festivals at an early age. He would later go on to the University to study pharmacy but {…}
Soprano Barbara Cook has passed away at the age of 89. Cook, best known for work on Broadway, won a Tony for “The Music Man” in 1957 and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2011. And while she dominated the musical scene, she did make some interesting appearances on the opera stage, most prominently at the Metropolitan Opera, where she {…}
Claudia Pinza has passed away at 92. The famed teacher and soprano died at the Allegheny General Hospital due to respiratory failure following a series of strokes. The daughter of the famed opera star and Broadway singer Ezio Pinza, Claudia Pinza taught voice at the Duquesne University and the University of Pittsburgh. Before taking on her role as a teacher, Pinza was {…}
The international mezzo Ameral Gunson died on Friday night of cancer, her husband has reported. Gunson studied singing at London´s Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Walter Gruner before joining the BBC Singers where she continued her studies with Otakar Krauss. She quickly established a successful and varied solo career once she left the BBC singers and went on {…}
Last Thursday, the honored and beloved conductor Jiří Bělohlávek passed away at the age of 71 after a long battle with an illness. He was in the midst of a five-year contract that he had just recently renewed with the Czech Philharmonic. The Prague native spent most of the early years of his career in Czechoslovakia. In 1970 he won the {…}
Christopher Charles Roselli, a well-established professor of music who worked with hundreds of students to achieve their goals on Broadway, passed away at the age of 55 years old on May 18, 2017. Roselli was born in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, to David and Frances Roselli. Unsure of what he wanted to do originally, after much deliberation he decided to {…}
Barbra Smith Conrad, the world-renowned opera singer, passed away on May 22 at the age of 79. The cause still unknown, but a cousin of Conrad declared that she had advanced Alzheimer’s disease. Conrad, an acclaimed mezzo-soprano, sang at the most esteemed stages across the globe, from New York’s Metropolitan Opera to the Vienna State Opera. At the age of {…}
Dennis Wilgenhof has died at the age of 44. The Dutch bass was found dead on Tuesday at a hotel in Maastricht, where he taught at the local academy. According to early reports, the singer suffered a heart attack. He was a member of the soloist’s ensemble of Oper Köln and Staatstheater Wiesbaden and he sang numerous leading roles including Osmin {…}
