Tenor Franco Corelli Dies

I am not sure if I know less about opera or earthworm sociology, but this Italian dude died:

Franco Corelli, a dashing Italian tenor who once starred alongside Maria Callas, has died at the age of 82, the mayor of his home town said Thursday.

Corelli, who rose to operatic stardom in the 1950s and remained there well into the 1970s, had been in hospital since August and died there late Wednesday, media reports said.

“He was the most viscerally thrilling and handsome tenor of the post Second World War generation,” the late Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan once said of Corelli.

The mayor of Ancona, on Italy’s east coast, confirmed reports of his death. “He was a figure of the highest human and artistic sensibility who will always remain in the memory and hearts of his fellow citizens,” Mayor Fabio Sturani said in a message to Corelli’s family. [Reuters]