Distinguished baritone dies mid-performance

Baritone Alejandro Meerapfel collapsed and died of heart failure on stage on 23 September at the Ambronay Early Music Festival. He was performing with his long-time collaborators, the conductor Leonardo Garcia Alarcon and soprano Mariana Flores (among others) in an oratorio by the 17th century composer Antonio Draghi.

The circumstances of his death were extraordinary. Along with Cappella Mediterranea and Namur Chamber Choir, the performance in Ambronay's restored mediaeval church was of a long-neglected work called Il Dono della Vita Eterna (He Gives Eternal Life) and Meerapfel was singing the role of God. Only a few moments earlier a member of the over 700 audience had fainted, and an ambulance had attended. When Meerapfel (aged 54) collapsed they moved to revive him too but were unsuccessful. The event was being televised live on the France Culture Box channel.

The Ambronay Festival said: 'He had performed many times in the Abbey and his sudden disappearance leaves us in shock.' ​Leonardo Garcia Alarcon issued a statement that: 'Alejandro was an angel on earth. Before the concert, his smile and good humour filled the souls of the entire artistic team and the Festival. We will miss him, but he will be with us forever.'

The following day the first concert in the Abbey was dedicated to Meerapfel's memory. Apropriately the full audience heard a programme built around the Mass for Five Voices by Willam Byrd, sung by a group from Les Arts Florissants. Paul Agnew, singing tenor and directing, acknowledged that it had been very difficult to perform such intense and intimate music, knowing what had happened on the same stage only a few hours before, but that it could hardly have been a more deeply felt tribute.