Leonard Warren

Born Leonard Warenoff in the Bronx to Russian Jewish immigrant parents,[1] Warren was first employed in his father's fur business.

Warren later sang in San Francisco, Chicago, Mexico City and Buenos Aires, and he appeared at La Scala in Milan in 1953.

His other published complete opera recordings include La traviata with Rosanna Carteri, Cesare Valletti, and conductor Pierre Monteux; Tosca, Aida, and Il trovatore, each with Zinka Milanov and Jussi Björling; La forza del destino with Milanov, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Rosalind Elias and Giorgio Tozzi; a second recording of Il trovatore with his final tenor co-star, Richard Tucker, featuring a young Leontyne Price in her Met debut role of Leonora; and Verdi's Macbeth, with Leonie Rysanek and Carlo Bergonzi.

The concerts were recorded and excerpts have been released by RCA Victor on the album Leonard Warren: On Tour in Russia, available on both LP and CD.

But by any standards it was a deluxe, quintessentially "Metropolitan Opera sound", one that seemed to take on a special glow and lustrousness as it opened up and spread itself generously around the big auditorium.

Three days later, on March 4, during a performance of La forza del destino with Renata Tebaldi as Leonora and Thomas Schippers conducting, Warren suddenly collapsed and died on stage.

Eyewitnesses including Rudolf Bing reported that Warren had completed Don Carlo's Act III aria, which begins Morir, tremenda cosa ("to die, a momentous thing"), and was supposed to open a sealed wallet, examine the contents and cry out "È salvo, o gioia" (He is safe, oh joy), before launching into the vigorous cabaletta.

Ted Morgan, writing (as Sanche de Gramont) for the New York Herald Tribune, won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, Edition Time in 1961 for his account of Warren's death.