German singer Christa Ludwig, who has performed on the world's most prestigious stages for nearly half a century, passed away on Saturday at the age of 93, Austrian agency APA announced on Sunday.
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The Berlin-born mezzo-soprano lived in the suburbs of Vienna.
The opera singer, who retired in 1994, was awarded the Legion of Honor in 2010 for her entire operatic career.
She entered the Vienna Opera in 1955 and performed at the Salzburg Festival under the direction of Austrian conductor Karl Boehm.
Christa Ludwig has triumphed on the biggest stages in the world, performing notably at La Scala in Milan, at the Royal Opera House in London but also at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
Considered the greatest mezzo-soprano of the last century, she was close to the composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein whom she admired and with whom she worked.
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After a first marriage to the Austrian bass baritone Walter Berry, in 1972 she married the French actor and director Paul-Émile Deiber, who died in 2011, following an accident at the age of 86.