Belgian baritone opera singer Jose van Dam, who sang with New York's Metropolitan Opera and Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, died at 85, the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel said on Thursday.

"He passed away peacefully, surrounded by his loved ones," the Belgian classical music school, where he was a master in residence of the voice section for two decades, said in a statement.

"Belgium loses its greatest ambassador of lyric art; the world loses a legend who, through his genius, marked the history of opera in the 20th and 21st centuries," it said.

Van Dam was born on August 25, 1940 in Brussels and started his career in the early 1960s with roles in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Carmen and Faust.

In the 1970s, he repeatedly sang and recorded with Herbert von Karajan - conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic during Germany's Nazi-era, who was shunned by some artists after World War Two - most notably in versions of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and Mozart's Requiem.

He later also sang at the funerals of Belgium's King Boudewijn and his wife Queen Fabiola.

Van Dam is also remembered for his singing roles in a film version of Mozart's Don Giovanni in 1979 and as an opera professor in "The Music Teacher" in 1988.

-Reporting by Inti Landauro; Editing by Charlotte Van Campenhout and Joe Bavier/Reuters