World renowned Canadian baritone Louis Quilico, best known for playing the cursed hunchback jester in the opera Rigoletto more than 500 times, died on Saturday of complications from surgery.
The 75-year-old opera star suffered a blood clot after a knee operation in June. He died from cardiac arrest.
His niece, Anne-Marie Quilico, was among several Montreal relatives preparing to leave for Toronto on Saturday to pay a hospital visit to the singer.
"We're rather floored by this," she said. "We weren't expecting it at all. It just happened suddenly and was a shock to the family."
Louis Quilico was born in 1925 in Montreal, where his father owned a bicycle shop on popular Rue St-Denis. Mr. Quilico made his stage debut in Montreal at 29 in a production of Boris Godunov.
From there, the leading baritone quickly rose to stardom, playing more than 80 roles in his 46-year career at opera houses in international cultural centres such as Vienna, Buenos Aires, Paris, Florence and Italy. He spent 25 years with the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
At home, he appeared regularly with the Canadian Opera Company and with the Opera du Quebec.
"He had a beautiful voice, a natural voice," said Pierre Beique, the former managing director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.
"For my money, Leonard Warren and Louis had the two truly big baritone voices."
Aldo Maggiorotti, host of a radio opera show in Toronto, said Mr. Quilco was also a wonderful human being. "Louis gave so much of himself as an artist and a person to the opera community. He was unselfish as an artist."
Mr. Quilico won numerous awards, including the prestigious Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air, the Canadian Music Council Medal and the Governor-General's Performing Arts Award.
In 1974, he was named a Companion of the Order of Canada. A street in the municipality of St-Leonard in Montreal was named in his honour.
"He was a great artist on stage," recalled retired music professor Carl Morey. "What marked him out was the lustre of his voice."
In addition to touching audiences worldwide, Mr. Quilico taught young vocalists in Toronto, Montreal, New York and Philadelphia.
"As a teacher he certainly had an influence on his students, he conveyed his own art to the young singers," said Prof. Morey, who headed the University of Toronto's music faculty during Mr. Quilico's tenure.
Mr. Quilico and his baritone son Gino, who was taught by his father, went on to make opera history in 1987 when they became the first father and son team to perform at the Metropolitan Opera.
Mr. Quilico's funeral will be held tomorrow in Toronto.
He leaves his second wife, concert pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico, with whom he recorded two albums, his son, daughter Donna and four grandchildren.