Jubilant Sykes, a celebrated opera singer, was fatally stabbed on Monday night in his home in Santa Monica, Calif., and his son was arrested in the attack, police officials said.

After the Santa Monica Police Department responded to a call about an assault at a house around 9:20 p.m., officers found Sykes, 71, with critical injuries consistent with a stabbing, the authorities said in a news release. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Micah Sykes, the singer’s 31-year-old son, was found inside the home and was taken into custody without incident.

It was unclear what led to the stabbing. “The circumstances surrounding the incident remain under investigation,” the police said in the news release, adding, “The suspect will be booked for homicide, and the case will be presented to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office for filing consideration.”

Lt. Lewis Gilmour, a spokesman for the Santa Monica Police Department, said in a statement that Sykes’s wife, Cecelia Sykes, had called 911 on Monday to report an assault at their home and that his family had told the authorities that Micah Sykes had a history of mental illness. The police have not determined if that played a role in the attack.

Sykes, a baritone, performed at some of the world’s most prominent stages, including Carnegie Hall, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington and the Barbican Center in London. In 1990, he performed the role of Jake in a production of “Porgy and Bess” at the Metropolitan Opera.

Sykes also sang jazz and spiritual music and performed with many orchestras, including the Atlanta Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic, according to his website.

Anthony Tommasini, who for more than two decades was the chief classical music critic for The New York Times, once wrote that his favorite recording of “Mass,” by Leonard Bernstein, included Sykes’s performance as the Celebrant. That recording, performed with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, was nominated for the Grammy Award for best classical album in 2009.

Marin Alsop, who conducted the Baltimore recording, said in a statement that working with Sykes had been an extraordinary experience.

“Jubilant brought a rare combination of vocal brilliance, spiritual depth and emotional honesty to the role of the Celebrant,” she said. “His artistry elevated everyone around him, and he had a profound ability to connect with audiences in the most human and vulnerable way.”

In 2019, Sykes told his alma mater, California State University, Fullerton, that he had initially had no dreams of becoming an opera singer. But he saw — and loved — his first opera at the university.

Still, when it came time to perform, he said, he feared he did not have the ability to master the demanding skills required of an opera singer. He would later acknowledge a love-hate relationship with singing.

“I like singing, but I’m human, and there are moments when I don’t like what I do,” he said in a radio interview in 1998. “I don’t like the way it comes out regardless of how it affects the audience. I am the first to know when it’s right, and when it’s not the way it should be.”

“There are some performances that you wish you could carry around,” he added. “I have a tendency to be a lot harder on myself.”

In a statement on Tuesday, Sykes’s management company, ACM 360 Artists, said Sykes would be “greatly missed.”

“Jubilant’s remarkable artistry touched millions, and his voice was rightly described as ‘art at its highest expression,’” the statement said.