Polish tenor, Bogdan Paprocki, died in Warsaw on Saturday, three weeks before his 91st birthday.

Two years ago he sang the part of Jontek in Stanisław Moniuszko’s Halka in a gala performance to mark the 150th anniversary of the work’s premiere. Paprocki had no formal musical education but took private vocal lessons during World War Two.

His career spanned almost seven decades on the concert and operatic stage and included appearances in over 2, 500 opera performances and concerts in Poland and almost fifty countries.

While on a tour of the United States in 1959, he was offered an engagement with the New York City Opera but turned it down because he did not want to emigrate from Poland.

Paprocki scored the greatest successes in works by Stanisław Moniuszko, the father of Polish national opera, as Jontek in Halka and Stefan in The Haunted Manor, as well as San Jose in Carmen, Pinkerton in Madam Butterfly, the Count in Rigoletto and Old Faust in Gounod’s opera. (mk)