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Rome (AP) — Salvatore Licitra, a tenor known in his Italian homeland as the "new Pavarotti" for his potent voice and considerable stamina, died Monday at age 43 after spending nine days in a coma following a motorscooter accident in Sicily. Catania's Garibaldi Hospital, announcing the death, said Licitra never regained consciousness after suffering severe head and chest injuries in the Aug. 27 accident. Doctors had said Licitra crashed his scooter into a wall near the town of Ragusa, apparently after suffering an interruption of blood to the brain while driving. The hospital said Licitra's family agreed to make his organs...

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Opera star Salvatore Licitra dies; Madonna readies new album; My Chemical Romance drummer fired…

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Milan (Reuters) - Salvatore Licitra, a leading Italian opera tenor seen as an artistic heir to the late Luciano Pavarotti, died Monday from head injuries suffered in a scooter accident last month, a statement on his website said.

Licitra, 43, fell and hit his head when he lost control of his scooter late on August 27 near the Sicilian city of Ragusa.

He was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Catania, where his condition was described as very serious.

"Salvatore Licitra did not make it," the statement posted on his official website said. "The doctors have declared him brain dead."

His family agreed to his organs being transplanted, it said.

The Swiss-born tenor debuted in 1998 but made his international breakthrough in 2002 when he stepped in for Pavarotti in Puccini's "Tosca," at New York's Metropolitan Opera. The New York Times had praised him for his "worthiness of the great Italian tradition.