9 Musicians Who Died While Performing

Because irony loves company just as much as misery, the story of baritone opera singer Leonard Warren will sound hauntingly familiar. It seems the previously mentioned Richard Versalle got the idea of singing his final aria at The Met from Mr. Warren (famous for playing Iago in Othello, among numerous other famous characters).

Decades before Versalle's onstage collapse, Leonard Warren would suffer a similar fate, encapsulating dramatic irony like none before, and perhaps none since. After singing a verse from Simon Boccanegra (a play too complex to summarize here), Warren fell face-forward onto the stage, dying of...not a heart attack for once, but instead a cerebral hemorrhage. 

The last verse he ever performed included the lines "Fatal urn of my destiny" and "To die! A tremendous moment!" The irony is potent.