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In this Feb. 22, 1961, file photo, Jon Vickers, in the role of Florestan, and Sena Jurinac, as Leonora, pose together at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, during the photo-call for the New London production of "Fidelio". The Royal Opera House said Sunday, July 12, 2015, that the Canada-born Vickers, nicknamed "God's tenor" for his voice and his Christian beliefs, has died. He was 88.Bob Dear/The Associated Press

Jon Vickers, who has died at age 88, was a Saskatchewan farmboy who became one of the great opera singers of the last century, thrilling music lovers with his virile, dramatic performances of Wagner, Verdi, Berlioz and Beethoven.

Mr. Vickers died after "a prolonged struggle with Alzheimer's disease," his children said in a statement released Saturday via the Royal Opera House in London.

He was one of the most famous alumnus of Toronto's Royal Conservatory. "Vickers' extraordinary career took him to every major opera house in the world and brought immense prestige to Canada," conservatory president Peter Simon said Sunday.

"His electrifying stage presence and titanic vocal power generated an unprecedented depth and variety of expression."

He was a long-time friend of John Diefenbaker, who attended the same Baptist church, and performed at the prime minister's funeral in 1979.

Mr. Vickers was known as a perfectionist whose Christian upbringing imbued him with a strict sense of morality.

He turned his back on the annual Bayreuth Festival in Germany and told a Globe and Mail interviewer of his disgust after being billeted there with a wealthy German woman with Nazi sympathies.

"At breakfast one day, when I praised the festival, she admitted she sorely missed the good old days when the Fuehrer was around," he said. "She blamed Germany's defeat on the Jews. It made my blood run cold. I never went back to Bayreuth."

He had the qualities of a heroic Wagnerian tenor and was known for the lead male role in Tristan und Isolde, but his versatility was such that the high points of his career also included performances in Berlioz's Les Troyens, Verdi's Otello and Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes.

The association with Peter Grimes was noteworthy because Mr. Britten was gay and Mr. Vickers, a conservative man, had a "dim view" of homosexuality, according to an unauthorized biography, Jon Vickers: A Hero's Life, which detailed the tensions between the Canadian tenor and the British composer.

Mr. Vickers famously pulled out of a 1977 production of Wagner's Tannhauser, saying he could not come to grips with the title role.

"Holding strong convictions, Vickers wrestled with portraying certain characters – notably Parsifal – and actually refused to perform some roles on moral grounds – specifically, Tannhauser," his family's statement said.

He also made headlines when, while playing a dying Tristan in 1975 in Dallas, he snapped at the audience to "shut up with your damn coughing!"

He was born Oct. 29, 1926 in Prince Albert, Sask., the sixth of eight children.

His father, Bill, a school teacher, was also a lay minister. The children grew up in a strict, devout environment, singing wherever their father preached – whether at church, get-togethers or the local penitentiary.

The family wasn't wealthy and Mr. Vickers and his brothers also had to work on a farm to help put food on the table.

Decades later, between concerts, he lived on a 400-acre cattle farm near Orangeville, Ont., with his wife, Henrietta, and their five children. He took pleasure recalling an occasion when a local told Mrs. Vickers: "You mean he's Jon Vickers, the singer? I thought you were farmers."

He wanted to study medicine but schools were full of veterans returning from the war. He did odd jobs, including working as a manager at Woolworth. In 1950, he was awarded a scholarship to the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.

Following a recital in Toronto in the fall of 1953, Globe and Mail music critic John Kraglund described the 27-year-old Mr. Vickers as one of Canada's most promising tenors. "There is a ringing lyric quality to his vocal presentation," Mr. Kraglund wrote.

Still, in the following years, Mr. Vickers struggled and had to moonlight as a brewery truck driver. He was about to quit on his musical career when David Webster, the administrator of England's Royal Opera House, was visiting Canada, heard him sing and offered him a contract in 1956.

Within years, his career took off, with appearances in major opera houses such as London's Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

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