TENOR LICITRA 'BRAIN DEAD' AFTER CRASH

TENOR LICITRA 'BRAIN DEAD' AFTER CRASH

(ANSA) - Catania, September 5 - Italian tenor Salvatore Licitra has been pronounced brain dead after suffering massive head and chest injuries in an August 27 scooter crash in Sicily, hospital sources said Monday.

Licitra, 43, was one of the greatest singers of his generation.

In the short time since his debut in 1998, he had been called the new (Luciano) Pavarotti.

Doctors at Catania Hospital said Monday afternoon brain scans on Licitra were showing no activity, nine days after he crashed his scooter into a wall near Ragusa without a helmet and went into a coma.

His family authorised the donation of his organs and said his body will be laid out for public viewing at Catania's Vincenzo Bellini opera house.

Licitra made a big splash with a last-minute substitution for Pavarotti at New York's Metropolitan Opera in 2002.

He had emerged as a rising star in the late 1990s although some critics contended he had not fulfilled his early promise.

Licitra was born in Switzerland to Sicilian parents and grew up in Milan.