One of South Africa’s most celebrated international sopranos, Marita Napier, died on Saturday in Cape Town, the SABC reported on Sunday.
Her death follows a long battle with cancer.
Napier was an established international artist specialising in the music of Wagner and Richard Strauss.
She was one of three South African-born opera singers who had sung lead roles at the Vienna State Opera, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, La Scala in Milan and London’s Covent Garden.
Napier performed 19 productions of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelugen at the world’s greatest opera houses.
She also received a Grammy Award for the Metropolitan recording of Die Walkure. — Sapa