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Jerry Hadley, noted tenor, dies

Posted July 17, 2007 11:00 pm

GARY PANETTA

Jerry Hadley, the world-class tenor and central Illinois native 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.

Hadley, who grew up near Manlius, Ill., 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 the 1989 production of his musical "Candide," and he sang the lead in Paul McCartney's "Liverpool Oratorio" in 1991.

"There are opera singers who have achieved fame and recognition because of their great voices - because of their great voices only," said Jeffrey Huberman, dean of the Slane College of Communications and Fine Arts at Bradley University, Hadley's alma mater. "In opera, that's often enough. Jerry, on the other hand, not only had a great voice - one of the great voices of our time - he was one of the great actors of our time, especially a comic actor. He was brilliant on stage. He had the muscles and the talent and the chops of the Broadway stage as much as the opera stage. When Leonard Bernstein decided to do the concert recording of 'Candide' he had Jerry sing the ingenue part, the tenor part, the title role. And that is one of the great recordings of that magnificent (piece)."

"The story about Jerry Hadley is very upsetting," said John Scacchetti, a 2002 Bradley graduate who is a dancer on Broadway in "42nd Street." "When I was a student at Bradley, we were always told of Jerry Hadley's success, and that his was a career path to follow."

Born June 16, 1952, to Jerry T. Hadley and Loretta M. Seghetti, Jerry Hadley grew up on a farm west of Manlius in what locals call the Thomas area, after a small town that no longer exists. He was one of three children: A brother, Dennis Dean Hadley, preceded him in death; his sister, Joyce Jenkins, still lives in Kentucky.

Rural life, the singer told the Journal Star in October 1997, consisted of corn, soybeans and Italian-American culture. A great-grandfather, Giovanni Palumbo, played opera recordings for the small boy, who was only 6 or 7 years old when the older man died.

"My dad didn't have milk cows, but we had everything else," Hadley said. "I had on the one hand a very typical Midwestern farm experience. But on the other hand - because my mother's family were all Italian immigrants - I had a very atypical Midwestern experience in that regard. Because it was very much a mixed and cross-cultural experience. A lot of my relatives didn't speak English.

"So in some ways I was like everybody else in the '50s and '60s. I had a typical American pop culture experience, I was also rubbing elbows with people who were much more of a European, particularly Italian, predisposition."

Hadley's musical gifts bloomed at Manlius High School, now part of Bureau Valley High School.

"When he was a sophomore he came out for the play," said Grant Andresen, Hadley's social studies teacher and drama director. "Jerry, it's hard to imagine now, was a rather shy kid around the halls. He didn't say much, he did a lot of reading. And he walked in for his audition - and of course the room was full of kids, buzzing - and he got up on stage and suddenly he was just transformed. When he got up on stage, it was like a different guy. He was so fearless, so talented. And it's been that way ever since. I've never seen him when he it wasn't that way."

Hadley found his calling at Bradley, where John Davis, the founder and then-director of the Bradley Chorale, encouraged him to study voice. Hadley kept in touch with both Davis, who died in 2005, and his wife, Ann, throughout his career.

After leaving Bradley in 1974, Hadley attended the University of Illinois. He became involved in an opera program, then led by David Lloyd, a 25-year veteran of the New York City Opera and general manager of the Lake George Opera Festival in upstate New York.

His agile, romantic tenor was noticed in the late 1970s by the late Beverly Sills, then general director of the New York City Opera, which hired him.

Hadley made his European debut at the Vienna State Opera in 1982 in Gaetano Donizetti's "L'elisir d'amore," famed for its tenor aria with nine high C's.

He then 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.

"He was very personable, he was very aware of the audience," said Ede Kidder, co-owner of Kidder Music, a longtime friend. "So even though he was singing classical stuff in Italian, or whatever language it happened to be in, there was a real connection with the audience. People didn't feel put off by the fact it was classical or it was operatic, which sometimes happens, obviously. He was a lot of fun to be around, he had a good sense of humor."

Despite his success, Hadley's ties to central Illinois remained strong. He did benefit performances for the newly consolidated Bureau Valley High School in 1998 and again in 2005.

"He helped the community so much by raising money for their auditorium and programs here," Andresen said. "It was just magic the first night he was here for the dedication. It was phenomenal. There were people there from everywhere. … There's a picture in the auditorium - it's really a very beautiful thing - one of the pictures that a reporter at the Star Courier in Kewanee took. Underneath it is a quote from Jerry that says, 'Whatever I am or hope to be, I owe it to the people who surrounded me as I grew up.' He was so loyal. He never, never lost his sense of home."

He also returned to Bradley, giving the December commencement address there for the class of 2004.

"When I've stepped back and surrendered and trusted … things just fell out of the sky and into my lap," he told the graduates.

Hadley's career, however, had been fading; he was less able to hit the high notes of earlier years. He also was in the process of filing for bankruptcy and suffering from depression, according to Robert Rochler, a senior investigator with the New York State Police. Last year in Manhattan, he was arrested on a charge of driving while intoxicated - at the wheel of his parked car. Prosecutors later dropped the case.

On July 10, he shot himself in the head with an air rifle at his home near Poughkeepsie. An ambulance took Hadley to St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie, where doctors determined that he had a severe brain injury and were keeping him on life support. Besides his sister, Joyce, Hadley is survived by his ex-wife, Sheryll Drake Hadley, and their two sons, Nathan and Ryan.

"We knew he had been struggling for a couple of years because he had gone through a divorce, but we thought he was coming out of it again," said Barbara Hedlund, a friend of Hadley's and a former member of Peoria-based Opera Illinois who teaches at the University of Illinois. "He got a better agent, he was singing a lot in Europe, he was looking forward to marrying (his new fiancee), starting over again. He still had opportunities, but something must have happened, something triggered it. Too many things happening at one time."

"I'm devastated and somewhat angry that there wasn't more support for him in the professional singing world when he needed it," said Eric Dalheim, Hadley's accompanist, a U of I professor and a longtime friend. "It's hard life out there. … It's sort of 'What have you done for me lately.' When your voice has full bloom of youth and freshness, and your physique goes along with it and the roles that you get and sing with famous conductors and you get great reviews, you're given the red carpet treatment. That can all fade very fast."

Gary Panetta can be reached at (309) 686-3132 or gpanetta@pjstar.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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