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It is sad news, but given that he had been suffering from Alzheimer's, as the ROH link notes, and in a nursing home for some years, I expect it was a release, and I like to think that his great spirit is now free. Godspeed to a unique artist with an awesome instrument. Another of whom we can say: We won't see his like again.

I remembered reading this by Jon Tolansky for Opera on the occasion of Vickers' 85th birthday.

JT: Jon, the very first time I ever saw you was a shock. At the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, in February 1961, a few minutes into the second act of Fidelio you sang ‘Gott! welch’ Dunkel hier!’ Of course it was ‘Gott!’ that came as such a shock, and I can’t ever forget the impact. It wasn’t just the volume and weight—it was the searing intensity that was so powerful.

JV: That one cry—‘Gott!’—has to be filled with so many feelings at one go: humility, hopefulness and despair. Really it is the answer to despair—‘GOD, how dark it is here’. He does not say ‘God’ in the way so many people misuse the word, as a common-or-garden everyday exclamation. He is speaking to God—‘GOD! What this darkness here is!’ Those first words—they express the sorrow, the pain, the hope and the joy at one go. Joy? Yes, because in his suffering he knows he has served the right cause—the cause for truth, for love, for God. I am that convinced that Beethoven, with his passion for this subject, had all those feelings in his mind when he wrote that one extraordinary cry—‘Gott!’—and it is the duty of the singer to try to convey them all in just that one opening note.

Thanks for posting, volcanohunter.

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So great an artist. I danced in "Aida" at the San Francisco Opera Ballet when Leontyne Price made her debut in the role. Vickers was her Ramses. I thought I'd heard the singing of the Gods!

RIP, Mr. Vickers.

What an amazing experience -- lucky you!

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