The American operatic tenor Jerry Hadley died today, at age 55, about a week after suffering an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
At his best, Hadley was a terrific singer, and he had a career that any aspiring singer would envy — he sang leading roles at the Met and NY City Opera in New York, as well as at La Scala, Covent Garden, and other world-class opera houses. For a while, he was the American tenor. His career had waned recently, however, and he was in the process of filing for bankruptcy when he died.
Still, the news of his apparent suicide was shocking, at least to me (I didn’t know Hadley, though I had met him once). Despite his successful career, and a family that included two kids (according to the Times, he was divorced from their mother and was living with a female companion when he died), he evidently found no peace here.
I’ve watched the status of this post since it was put up, and I find it immensely depressing that there are other people as ignorant on this area of the arts as I. When I read your post, I thought to myself that I would try to remember the man’s name (that’s the best I can do) and that his suicide was considered a huge loss to the opera community. I really hate seeing the 0 comments at the bottom of this thing before it scrolls off.