Opera singer Philip Langridge on stage with Magdalena Kozena (left) and Christiane Oelze at the Glyndebourne Festival. Photograph: Donald Cooper

One of the world's finest operatic tenors wow gold, Philip Langridge, has died aged 70. Tributes were led by the Royal Opera and the composer Sir Harrison Birtwistle, who called him a "unique artist-musician" who left "a large hole in the world's music".

Langridge appeared on all the world's wow gold great stages after his career began at Glyndebourne in 1964, in Richard Strauss's Capriccio. Before being taken ill he was on stage over Christmas at the Met in New York, enthusiastically baking children as a dragged-up Witch in Hansel and Gretel.