# Jon Vickers, 1926-2015



## Azol

Jon Vickers, celebrated tenor, dies aged 88

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-33497596


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## DavidA

Great singer though from all accounts a difficult man to deal with. He got so involved in a performance of Otello that the Desdemona literally feared for her life!


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## Guest

I don't know him that well, not being that into opera. But I do have the Klemperer Fidelio.

RIP


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## Headphone Hermit

A fantastic singer - wonderful in Berlioz as well as Wagner (and many other composers) though not everyone's cup of tea (either as a singer or as a bloke). He has long been one of my most admired tenors


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## Albert7

One of the great legends... He is gone now and very sad for us.


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## jtbell

New York Times obituary

One Friday afternoon in fall 1983 I took the train from Schenectady, New York, where I had just started a college-teaching job, down to "the City" for a weekend visit. My first stop after checking into my room at a YMCA was the Metropolitan Opera box office. It turned out that Saturday's performance was Britten's _Peter Grimes_, with Vickers in the title role. The picture in the NY Times obituary is from that production.

The only tickets left were for standing room and "obstructed view" seats. I gambled on one of the latter. It turned out to be at the very front of the third or fourth balcony. The proscenium blocked the view of the nearest quarter of the stage, but I could look directly into the orchestra pit, and had a good view of the rest of the stage, including the climactic scene with Grimes/Vickers alone at the shore and fog rolling in from the back of the stage.

That is my all-time favorite performance memory.


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## Sloe

DavidA said:


> Great singer though from all accounts a difficult man to deal with. He got so involved in a performance of Otello that the Desdemona literally feared for her life!


Since I never met him and never will I can say how he was to deal with is irrelevant for me.


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