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By Matthew Westphal
16 Jul 2007
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| Jerry Hadley |
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| photo by Christian Steiner |
Tenor Jerry Hadley, who has been in a coma in a Hudson Valley hospital since an apparent suicide attempt last week, has been taken off life support.
Family spokesperson Celia P. Novo issued a statement this afternoon saying that Hadley has received the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church at St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie and that life support equipment has been removed.
"He is not in pain and will be kept comfortable until his passing," she said.
The 55-year-old Hadley was found by New York State Police on the morning of July 10 in his home near Poughkeepsie with a gunshot wound in his head and an air rifle nearby. A police spokesperson revealed the following day that the tenor had been struggling with both severe depression and financial difficulties.
While he is said to have been going through a difficult vocal and career transition recently — not uncommon for tenors of his age — Hadley was during the 1980s and 1990s probably the most admired American tenor on the world's opera stages. He had triumphs ranging from Mozart and bel canto in most of the world's great opera houses to the title roles in John Harbison's The Great Gatsby and Myron Fink's The Conquistador (both world premieres) to "The Tom and Jerry Show," a wildly popular duo recital program he performed with baritone Thomas Hampson.
He was also adept at Broadway and operetta: two of his most celebrated recordings are the Grammy-winning 1988 EMI release of the complete Show Boat (which also featured Teresa Stratas and Frederica von Stade) and Leonard Bernstein's late recording of his own Candide (alongside June Anderson, Adolph Green and Christa Ludwig).
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