Madrid —

Spain’s world-famous opera singer Montserrat Caballe, known for her velvet-edged voice and radical rock duet with Queen singer Freddie Mercury, died in Barcelona on Saturday at the age of 85.

Hailed as one of the world’s greatest singers for her vocal virtuosity and dramatic powers, Caballe charmed audiences for half a century with a huge repertoire that saw her perform across the globe.

The Spanish soprano was already considered an opera great when her duet with Mercury, a boundary-busting combination of opera and rock, became the anthem for the 1992 Olympic Games and propelled her into the mainstream.

Retired for several years because of health problems, the soprano was hospitalised in mid-September due to a gall bladder problem, local media reported.

“She died overnight at the Sant Pau hospital,” a hospital source told AFP.

A service for the singer will be held on Sunday at 2pm local time (1200 GMT), with a funeral the following day, Barcelona authorities said. “Montserrat Caballe, her voice and her tenderness, will always stay with us,” said Spanish leader Pedro Sanchez on Twitter.

He said the country had lost “a great ambassador of our country, a soprano recognized internationally”.

Born in April 1933 to a humble family in Barcelona, Maria de Montserrat Viviana Concepcion Caballe i Folch studied music at the Liceu Conservatory in the Catalan capital. — Reuters