BEIJING, Sept. 6 — Italian tenor Salvatore Licitra, known as “new Pavarotti” in Italy for his powerful operatic voice, died Monday at the age of 43 after a scooter accident in Sicily.

Licitra had been in a coma since the Aug. 27 accident in which he crashed his scooter into a wall in southern Sicily.

The tenor made his international fame in 2002, when he stepped in for Pavarotti in Giacomo Puccini’s “Tosca” at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. His performance won huge ovations and the putative title of “Pavarotti’s heir.”

“If this was not to be the farewell of a faded superstar, then at least it would be the starry anointing of a potential successor,” the New York Times commented after Licitra’s performance.

Licitra was born in Switzerland in 1968 and grew up in Milan. He came to opera late in life.

Doctors at the hospital where Licitra died said his family had agreed to make his organs available for transplant.

They said a news conference would be held later Tuesday.

On Xinhua Web site: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/entertainment/2011-09/06/c_131105735.htm