Jerry Hadley - Che Gelida Manina

Jerry Hadley: June 16, 1952 - July 18, 2007

Jerry Hadley was a leading American tenor for almost 20 years with a voice that could be rich and dramatic or light and lively. He excelled in roles ranging from Puccini's La bohème and Mozart's Don Giovanni to Broadway.

In 1996, Hadley commissioned composer Daniel Steven Crafts to write music for poems by Carl Sandburg. The work "The Song and the Slogan," was made into a PBS video that won an Emmy.

Jerry Hadley was regarded as the leading American tenor of his generation and remained to be one of the most sought after singers of our time.

His career has taken him to all the world's leading opera houses and festivals among them the Metropolitan Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the San Fransisco Opera and the Royal Opera at Covent Garden.

As someone who sang for him, I can say that he was a man of exquisite power, one who possessed a kind of soul-piercing stare which left all who sang with him naked and bare.

He saw in all of us a certain truth that others rarely could.

Rest in peace, Jerry.