Opera singer Jerry Hadley dead at 55

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. - Jerry Hadley, the world-class tenor known for his agile and lyric voice, died Wednesday, a week after he shot himself in an apparent suicide attempt.

The 55-year-old singer died two days after doctors at St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie took him off life support, said family friend and spokeswoman Celia Novo.

Hadley, who had been battling personal problems, shot himself with an air rifle July 10 at his home in Clinton Corners, 80 miles north of New York City. State police said he was found unconscious on his bedroom floor.

The Illinois-born Hadley sang everything from Mozart to show tunes, including appearing on a recording of "Show Boat" that was a best-seller.

He built his reputation tackling demanding work, including the title role in composer John Harbison's 1999 "The Great Gatsby" at the Metropolitan Opera. Leonard Bernstein chose Hadley to sing the title role in a 1989 production of his musical "Candide," and he sang the lead in Paul McCartney's "Liverpool Oratorio" in 1991.

Hadley was featured in the Leos Janacek's opera "Jenufa," which won a Grammy in 2004.

"I particularly admired the strength and sweetness of his voice in the lyric Mozart parts and the imagination and commitment he brought to contemporary works," James Levine, music director of the Metropolitan Opera, said in a statement.

"He was also a warm, generous colleague with a great sense of humor, who always gave his very best. ... We will miss him enormously."

Hadley started his career in regional companies. He was noticed in the late 1970s by Beverly Sills, then general director of the New York City Opera, which hired him. She died earlier this month.

Hadley also performed at Milan's La Scala, the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the San Francisco Opera, the San Diego Opera and the festivals in Glyndebourne, England, Aix-en-Provence, France, and Salzburg, Austria.

Hadley in recent years had been dealing with financial problems and was being treated for depression, police said after the shooting. He had been arrested in Manhattan last year in a parked car on a charge of driving while intoxicated. His lawyer said the singer never intended to drive because he realized he was tipsy, and the case was eventually dropped.

From the NYTimes: July 18, 2007 Jerry Hadley, Operatic Tenor, Dies at 55 By ANTHONY TOMMASINI The American operatic tenor Jerry Hadley, noted for his bright lyric voice, lively acting and adventurous choice of repertory, died today in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. He was 55. His death was announced by Celia P. Novo, a longtime family friend. He had been on life support at a Poughkeepsie hospital since July 10, when he shot himself in the head with an air rifle, causing severe brain damage, at a house in Clinton Corners, N.Y., near Poughkeepsie, where he lived with a female companion, the New York state police said. Friends and colleagues said Mr. Hadley had suffered from severe depression and had had financial difficulties, troubled personal relationships and professional setbacks. His death ends a career that in the 1980s seemed one of the most promising in American opera. Mr. Hadley made his professional debut in 1976 in a Lake George Opera production of Mozart’s “Così Fan Tutte.” Two years later he was heard by Beverly Sills, who was in line to take charge of the New York City Opera. She immediately offered him a contract, and he made his City Opera debut the next year. In those early years Mr. Hadley’s voice seemed ideally suited to the lyric tenor repertory, particularly bel canto roles like Donizetti’s Edgardo and Nemorino and the operas of Mozart. He sang with rich Italianate warmth and elegant phrasing. Moving up to more vocally robust Verdi roles, he gave vibrant portrayals of the Duke in “Rigoletto” and Alfredo in “La Traviata.” His stylistic insights were nurtured by the soprano Joan Sutherland and her husband, the conductor Richard Bonynge, who became mentors and with whom he made recordings, including a program of solo tenor arias, “The Age of Bel Canto,” with Mr. Bonynge conducting. There was something distinctively American about the directness and brash energy that Mr. Hadley brought to his work at its best. He was Leonard Bernstein’s choice to sing the title role in the Deutsche Grammophon recording of Bernstein’s “Candide,” with the composer conducting, which won the 1991 Grammy award for best classical album. He was a featured artist on two other Grammy winners in the best opera recording category. Like many lyric tenors, Mr. Hadley could not resist taking on weightier parts that required more vocal heft and power, like the title roles in Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffmann” and Massenet’s “Werther.” Many opera buffs and critics faulted Mr. Hadley for singing repertory that compelled him to push his voice, a move that resulted in loss of bloom, strained sound and unsteady pitch. But despite the imperfections, the urgency of his singing was usually hard to resist. Jerry Hadley was born in Princeton, Ill., on June 16, 1952. At a young age he wanted to be a conductor, an ambition he took to college. But urged by friends to switch to singing, he earned a master’s degree in voice at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Then he taught for two years at the University of Connecticut at Storrs. He had “great trepidations about immediately jumping into the New York music scene,” he recalled in a 1999 interview in The New York Times. “I didn’t really feel ready vocally or emotionally or spiritually,” he added, “so teaching in Connecticut was a perfect sort of adjustment period before taking on a very different life style.” Mr. Hadley’s breakthrough came with his 1979 City Opera debut in the supporting role of Arturo in Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” — although, as he later recounted, the first performance was a comedy of errors. At his entrance he caught a chair on his dangling sword and dragged it across the stage, and he somehow managed to set his frilly hat afire. In time, though, he was appearing at the Vienna State Opera, La Scala in Milan, Covent Garden in London and with other major companies. His unplanned Met debut as Des Grieux in Massenet’s “Manon” in 1987 came about after the originally scheduled tenor and the replacement both pulled out because of illness. Mr. Hadley made a strong impression, singing “sweetly with a healthy, hearty light tenor voice,” the critic Tim Page wrote in his review for The Times. Mr. Hadley’s survivors include two sons, Nathan and Ryan, from his marriage to Cheryll Drake Hadley, which ended in divorce; and a sister, Joyce Hadley Jenkins. In recent years Mr. Hadley’s career had been foundering. Last year he was arrested on a drunken driving charge while sitting in a car on Riverside Drive on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The charges were dropped early this year. Mr. Hadley’s significant Met appearances include his Ferrando in a new Lesley Koenig production of Mozart’s “Così Fan Tutte” in 1996, Tom Rakewell in a new Jonathan Miller production of Stravinsky’s “Rake’s Progress” in 1997 and the title role in a premiere of John Harbison’s “Great Gatsby” in 1999. Though Mr. Harbison’s haunting opera had strong champions, its overall mixed reception was a particular disappointment to Mr. Hadley, whose earnest but unsubtle portrayal was faulted for lacking the vocal charisma and dramatic aura that the role required. Still, he was devoted to the opera. His final Met appearance was as Gatsby in a 2002 revival of the work.

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