The great Canadian tenor Jon Vickers died today.  My most memorable evening in the theater was seeing him, Renata Scotto, and Cornell MacNeil at the Met in the Zeffirelli production of Otello.  (Seems to me that Otello is that rarest of creatures that is actually better than its Shakespearean source.)

Here is Vickers in the final scene of Verdi’s opera.  Art just doesn’t get any better than this.