Jerry Hadley 3

Some of the comments on my initial blog posting about Jerry Hadley raise questions that I'd like to briefly discuss. These comments either stated outright or implied that discussing Hadley's singing and vocal technique were not appropriate under the circumstances.

I disagree with that.

Opera singers are public figures; their work is reviewed and discussed in the media all the time. Musicians are humans, and sometimes the reviews are going to be bad reviews. I think all performing musicians know this and, if they're going to survive in the music business, they have to find ways to deal with the reviews and the publicity, whether good or bad. The same very likely goes for their families.

I don't think that reviewers ought to be nasty or cruel about what they say. I've written some bad reviews, and even in those circumstances I try to find and comment on aspects of a performance that I liked or that I thought could have been built on to produce a better performance. I try to keep in mind that I'm writing about humans.

When a famous musician dies or retires, it's entirely appropriate to review and evaluate the totality of that musician's career. The evaluation can certainly include details of the musician's training and must cover the trajectory of the singer's career. The obituaries I've seen all allude to his vocal and personal problems. I think the comments various people made here about Jerry Hadley's teachers and vocal technique were appropriate, despite the very sad circumstances of his passing.

As far as my own evaluation goes, it's limited. I don't have any of his recordings, and I heard him in person only a few times. The first was in Tales of Hoffman in the 1996-97 season, and I thought him very good in what was one of the better productions of that year in the Civic Auditorium. He sang well and was delightful to watch. Next was Manon, with Ruth Ann Swenson in the title role. The whole cast came down with colds and, poor things, had to suffer with the deadly conducting of Julius Rudel. 'Nuff said, given all that.

Last was Louise, in 1999-2000 season. One commenter questioned my remark about "a bad moment or two" on Hadley's part. That bad moment, alas, amounted to the entire opening scene, a dialog between Julien and Louise. Throughout the opera, no amount of good musicianship and diction could disguise the fact that the part was written for a dramatic tenor along the lines of Thill. He was badly overparted and thus miscast. I put part of the blame for this on Lotfi Mansouri, who also happily cast Carol Vaness in roles too heavy for her, such as Tosca and Norma, which contributed to her vocal decline.

I can't do a full analysis of Hadley's career, given the above. Still, from reading what other writers have had to say about him, it certainly seems possible that he made some mistakes in choosing parts, and that those mistakes eventually took their toll on his voice and career.

Jerry Hadley 2

Jerry Hadley died in my absence, taken off life support following a grievous self-inflicted wound. Daniel Wakin's second article about Hadley reported that his career appeared to be on the upswing and that the tenor had plans to move into some new musical areas.

I'm sorry about the troubles he'd apparently been having over the last few years, which seem to have included fewer bookings, some vocal problems, money issues, and depression. I wish he'd gotten whatever help he needed to overcome the depression and deal with everything else. It's very sad for everyone who knew and loved him, and sad for those of us who didn't, as well.

Jerry Hadley

A horrifying story has gone up on the Times Web site, indicating that tenor Jerry Hadley has apparently attempted suicide and is not expected to recover.

Hadley has reportedly had drinking problems for a few years, and musical colleagues are quoted as saying he'd been depressed.

He's never been a favorite of mine - I still remember a particularly bad moment or two in Louise, though I also remember a pretty good Hoffmann in the year the San Francisco Opera was performing in the Civic Auditorium - but I'm sad to read this. I'd also like to kick the Times writer who came up with the unintentionally funny headline, considering the jokes about what you find inside a tenor's head.

What Gets Attention and What Doesn't

Like most bloggers, I run an an analytics program to track hits, search terms, and other information about who reads this blog and what they read. I used SiteMeter for the first few years, and switched last year, with some pain, to Google Analytics.

I write about a wide range of topics, from politics to dull orchestral repertory to current opera productions to the joys of Elliott Carter. (I mean that, too.) I've been rather shocked to find that even now, two years after his passing, the top search term resulting in hits to the blog is "Jerry Hadley."

You could say I'm not exactly happy about this. I didn't say anything particularly original about the tenor: I commented on the several times I'd seen him live (one hit, one miss, one pass owing to illness), the ups and downs of his career, and on the sad manner of his death. I have to guess that it speaks to something about either the size of Hadley's fan base or to prurient interest in how he died.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, thank you; I appreciate your taking the time to read and comment. If you happen to be reading this posting because of a search on Hadley: I hope you'll consider taking a look at the rest of what I write about.

And Speaking of Obits...

We've had some illustrious singers die in the last few months, and I haven't had all that much to say about them. Jerry Hadley I'd at least seen in person, so I could say something about my personal experience of him. I missed Beverly Sills entirely, though I saw Regine Crespin - once - at San Francisco Opera in the mid-1980s. I knew very little about voices and opera at the time and I hardly remember a thing about her performance. I also managed to miss seeing Luciano Pavarotti in person, as I'd missed Birgit Nilsson.

I know Nilsson, Crespin, and Pavarotti on record, of course; Sills somewhat less so because her repertory is not exactly my thing. And, of course, I've followed Pavarotti's career over the last 12 years or so, as his appearances turned into caricatures of what they had once been. Accounts in the press and blogosphere mention recitals where he could barely remember what he was singing and had to rely on the score; for his 1990s Met appearances as Calaf, he had to be helped around the stage by attendants.

He hadn't sung at San Francisco since 1988, and I seem to recall there were issues of some kind that kept him away. I'm tremendously sorry I never saw him, as I'm sorry I missed Nilsson and, especially, Leontyne Price. Records, even great ones, don't tell the whole story, ever; I always want to get a sense of the physical impact of a voice heard in a hall.

For all the variability of his declining years, at his best Pavarotti was unquestionably among the greatest Italian tenors of the 20th century. His plangent, slightly reedy voice couldn't be mistaken for anyone else's. He had Italian style in his bones, from the effortless line to the ring at the top of his range to his splendid diction. Alex Ross describes some of this far better than I can.

But you should listen for yourself. Alex links to several clips of Pavarotti, all of which I heard earlier today. "Che gelida manina" and "Una furtiva lagrima" are perfectly lovely, models of style and beautiful singing. And both give him ample opportunity to charm and beguile the audience, which he could do so well. The audience goes absolutely nuts after "Che gelida manina," and with good reason.

I feared that "E lucevan le stelle," so easily exaggerated or overdone, would bring out the worst in Pavarotti, but no. It's a Golden Age performance, despairing and passionate, dignified, magnificently sung, and it brought me to tears.

A Look Back

It's December 31, and the changing of the year is at hand. I'm not one for digging around in Google Analytics to make a list of my most popular postings, though I will note that my long-ago postings about the late Jerry Hadley have surprising legs.

I also don't always do best-performance postings, but there are a few I really need to mention. I should note that owing to jujitsu and SFS's ticketing software (I never renewed my subscription), my concert-going has been severely curtailed since the summer. I can't go to Sunday afternoon concerts or operas, which is a significant limiting factor given where I live and work.

I'm going to reach back to December, 2011, because there was a spectacular program then that I never blogged about, owing to a peculiarity of the program notes. That note is still haunting me; perhaps I should send out the letter I drafted a year ago after all.

In chronological order:

December, 2011. Esa-Pekka Salonen at SFS; Leila Josefowicz and Christine Brewer. Sibelius, Salonen, Wagner. A Sibelius tone poem, sumptuously played; Salonen's dense and beautiful violin concerto, which Josefowicz brought off in magnificent fashion; Bruennhilde's Immolation, with Brewer in fine voice after sounding rather off in the Missa Solemnis of June, 2011. To my surprise, she sang from a score. I'm not a soprano, but if I were I could sing it from memory. This lends some credence to those who claimed that Brewer was bounced from the last production of the Schenk Ring at the Met for not knowing the music well enough.

January, 2012. SFS/MTT, Christian Tetzlaff. Tetzlaff and a small ensemble in the Ligeti violin concerto. Good god, what a piece and what a performance.

January, 2012. SFS/MTT, Janacek Sinfonietta, Debussy, Le martyr de Saint Sebastien. A brilliant and unexpectedly wonderful pairing. I should have seen it again Saturday night rather than attending Susan Graham's recital.

March, 2012. Abel Gance's Napolean. I only saw the second half (I was feeling poorly in the morning) and wish I'd gone twice.


March, 2012. SFS/MTT, American Mavericks. The usual suspects, alas, but wonderfully played.


May, 2012. Matthias Goerge and Leif Ove Andsnes, Mahler and Shostakovich songs. Simply incredible singing.

June, 2012. Ojai North! Beautiful programming (and playing) by Leif Ove Andsnes, with colleagues including Marc-Andre Hamelin.

June, 2012. Duke Bluebeard's Castle, MTT/SFS; Michelle DeYoung, Alan Held. I'm told that DeYoung's Hungarian was a whole lot better than Held's; what really counts, though, was the top-notch singing, the sumptuous playing by SFS, and the unbelievable sound of the fifth door opening. Yes, I went twice.

June, 2012. Nixon in China, SF Opera. Finally, this masterpiece finds its way to the Bay Area.

July, 2012. King Roger, Santa Fe Opera. Finally, opera companies are recognizing that this rarity shouldn't be rare.

October, 2012. Einstein on the Beach, touring company. Finally! I was a little worried that it might be unbearable; it was, in fact, fascinating and delightful.

I'll give an honorable mention to West Edge Opera: I liked their charming Manga Flute a lot better than the SF Opera production, with its hideously tone-deaf "translation" by David Gockley. Lastly, I had a good year in blogging, as you can see from the post count.

James Levine Birthday Celebration

The Met Opera radio channel on Sirius XM (channel 74) will have a special marathon this weekend in honor of James Levine's 70th birthday. Program is after the cut. Of special interest are the rarely-heard Ghosts of Versailles at noon Saturday and Idomeneo at noon on Sunday, as well as the Vespri that follows Idomeneo. It's a shame they can't get it together for Moses und Aron or Wozzeck, and it is bizarre that no Wagner is among the operas being broadcast.