Hermann Prey; Operatic Baritone

Hermann Prey, 69, a German butcher’s son who became an international opera star. Prey, a baritone, was considered one of the greatest contemporary performers of Franz Schubert’s songs and started an annual Schubert festival that alternates between New York and Vienna. He performed at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, Germany, and La Scala in Milan, Italy. He had sung at Munich’s Prince Regent Theater only last Sunday. Born in Berlin, Prey started singing in the city’s Mozart boys choir as a child. In the late 1940s, to pay for his music lessons, he organized a dance band and wrote popular tunes for it to perform in nightclubs. In 1952, he won a “master singer” contest sponsored by the U.S. Army and was offered a two-week American tour. He made his American debut that November with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by the legendary Eugene Ormandy. In 1962, the Bavarian minister of culture awarded Prey the title of Kammersanger. On Thursday in Munich of a heart attack.

Manuel Mejia Vallejo; Colombian Novelist

Manuel Mejia Vallejo, 75, Colombian novelist known for his realistic depictions of urban and rural life. The author was among the most important writers in a country with one of Latin America’s strongest literary traditions. Mejia Vallejo’s work dealt primarily with the social upheavals that occurred in and around his native city of Medellin. He was only 22 when he wrote his first novel, “It Was Us.” In 1962, he won Spain’s Nadal Prize for his novel “The Marked Day,” and in 1989 he earned Venezuela’s Romulo Gallegos Prize for “The House of the Two Palms.” On Thursday in Medellin of complications from two strokes.