Success as an opera singer
In 1982 he made his first appearance at the
Vienna State Opera as Nemorino in
Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore. He frequently performed at the
Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, the
Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, the
Deutsche Oper Berlin, the
Hamburg State Opera, the
Lyric Opera of Chicago, the
San Francisco Opera, the
San Diego Opera and the
Glyndebourne, Aix-en-Provence and
Salzburg festivals.
He was known for his interpretations of lyric tenor opera roles as well as his performances of Broadway musicals,
operetta, and popular music. One of his best-selling recordings was the
EMI three-CD recording of the complete score of
Show Boat, conducted by
John McGlinn. Hadley sang the role of
Gaylord Ravenal.
He sang the tenor roles of the
bel canto repertory (
Il Barbiere di Siviglia,
L'elisir d'amore,
Anna Bolena,
La bohème,
Lucia di Lammermoor) as well as
Mozart (
Così fan tutte,
Don Giovanni,
Die Zauberflöte,
La clemenza di Tito) and the French Romantics (
Les contes d'Hoffmann,
Faust,
Werther,
Manon).
He sang the role of Tom Rakewell in
Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress for much of his career, first performing it while a graduate student at the University of Illinois. Hadley created the role of Don Luis de Carvajal y de la Cueva, in
Myron Fink's 1997 opera,
The Conquistador, and the title role in
John Harbison's 1999
The Great Gatsby, based on the novel of the same name. He created the tenor lead role in Sir
Paul McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio.
In the early 1990s, Hadley appeared on
The Symphonic Procol Harum, an album of reinterpretations of the music of the classic rock group featuring past and present members of the band, augmented by orchestra and guest vocalists; Hadley's contribution was a stirring vocal interpretation of the
Procol Harum classic,
Grand Hotel.
In 1996, Jerry Hadley commissioned the composer
Daniel Steven Crafts to create music for selected poems by
Carl Sandburg. The work,
The Song and The Slogan, premiered in 2000 at the University of Illinois, and was made into a PBS video, which won an
Emmy Award for Best Musical Performance by the Mid-America Chapter of the
National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Among the performers in the premiere were University professors and musicians with whom he had worked while a student, including pianist Eric Dahlheim, conductor Paul Vermel, and cellist Barbara Hedlund.
He also sang the lead role in
Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. With Richard Bonynge, he made many recordings in the
bel canto genre, and
Leonard Bernstein selected him to sing the title role in a complete recording of his
operetta Candide (which Bernstein himself conducted). It was one of the conductor's very last projects. The performance was also filmed for
television.
As a recitalist, he gave concerts in Europe and the United States, and his performances regularly featured American music. He performed frequently with the American conductor-pianist
Alexander Frey, and at the time of Mr. Hadley's death they were planning to record two new solo compact discs of song repertoire of Austria and Hollywood. Jerry Hadley also performed frequently with pianist
Eric Dalheim.
Jerry Hadley's last operatic performances were in May 2007 in
Brisbane, Australia as Pinkerton in
Madama Butterfly with
Opera Queensland. In an interview with the
The Queensland Courier-Mail Hadley commented on his return to the stage after a self-imposed exile following his divorce from pianist Cheryll Drake Hadley in 2002. "A wounded bird cannot sing. It was tough. It was emotionally distressing and it goes straight to the throat. So I took some time off and sat in the quiet for a while. I never really understood how inseparable was the journey of the spirit and the journey of singing and making music. For the first time in my life I couldn't see a way forward. But I came out on the other side of it with a deeper appreciation of what a great gift and great opportunities God has given me."
