Bureau County News
By Barb Kromphardt
bkromhardt@bcnews/com

Bureau County native Jerry HADLEY, 55, is in critical conditon following a shooting accident in his New York home.

Robert ROCHLER, senor investigator of the New York State Police, told reporters that early Tuesday, HADLEY put an air rifle to his head and fired in the bedroom of his home in Clinton Corners, near Poughkeepsie, causing severe brain damage. As of Friday, he was on life support at St. Francis Hospital and Health enters in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., and ROCHLER said he was not expected to survive.

HADLEY's last major performances were in May, when he sang the role of Pinkerton in a production of "Madama Butterfly" at Opera Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.

HADLEY's a native of Thomas, (IL), graduated from Manlius High School and received degrees from both Bradley University and the University of Illinois. He began his carreer in 1976 at the Lake George Opera. In 1978, Beverly SILLS offered him a contract at the New York City Opera. Three years later, a performance at the Kennedy Center led to debuts at the Glyndebourne Festival and the Roayal Opera House at Covent Garden.

HADLEY also sang at the world's major opera houses, including the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the San Francisco, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Salzburg Festival, the Hamburg State Opera, thje Bastille Opera in Paris and the GermanState Opera in Berlin.

HADLEY also won three Grammy Awards.

HADLEY returned to Bureau County 10 years ago for the premier concert at the newly-constructed Bureau Valley High School auditorium, and again in 2005 for two concerts to raise money for the Bureau Valley School Foundation.

OBITUARY 
The New York Times
July 19, 2007

Jerry Hadley, Adventurous Lyric Tenor, Dies at 55
By Anthony Tommasini

Jerry HADLEY, a tenor who was noted for his bright lyric voice, lively acting and adventurous choice of repertory and whose career in the 1980s seemed one of the most promising in Anmerican opera, ided yeserday in Poughkeepsie, N. Y. He was 55.  

 His death was announced by Celia P. Novo, a longtime family friend. He had been onlife suport at a Poughkeepsie hospital since July 10, whe  he shot himiself in the head with an air rifle, causing severe brain damage. The shooting occurred at a house in Clinton Corners, N. Y., near Poughkeesie, where he lived with a female companion, the New York state police said.

Friends and colleagues said Mr. HADLEYsuffered from severe depresson, financial difficulties, troubled personal relationships and professional setbacks.

Mr. HADLEYmade his professional debut in 1976 in a Lake George Opera productin of Mozart's "Cosi 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 thelyric tenor repertory, particularly bel conto 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 virant protrayals of the the Duke in "Rigoletto" and Alfredo in "La Traviata."

His stylistic insights were nurtured by the soprano Joan Sutherland and her husband, the conducator Richard Bonynge, who became  mentors and with whom hemade recordings, including a prgram of solo tenor arias, "The Age of Bel Canto" with Mr. Bonynge conducting.

There was something distinctively American about the directness and brashenergy that Mr. HADLEY brought to his work at its best. He was Leonard Bernstein's choice to sing the title role in the Deutsche Grammonphon 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 category of best opera recording.

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 "Wether." Many opera buffsand cirtics 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 imperfections, the urgency of his singing was usally hard to resist.

Jerry HADLEY was born in Princeton, Ill. (Note, correction: He was born in Thomas, IL), 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 sining, he earned a master's degree in voice at the Universit 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 The New York Times. "I didn't really feel ready vocally or emotionally or spiritually," he added, "so teaching in Connecticut was a perfet soprt of adjustment perod before taking on a very different life style."

Mr. HADEL'sbreakthrough 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 coedy 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 sceduled tenor and the replacement both pulled out because of illness. Mr. HADLEY made a strong impresion, 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 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 significan Met appearances include his Ferrando in a new Lesley KOENIG production of Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte" in 1996, Tom RAKEWELL in a new Jonathan MILLER production of STRAVINSKY'S "Rakes'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 protrayal 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.