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Weekend Cover Story: Tenor Jerry Hadley won't limit his voice to classical opera
Friday, March 10, 2000 By Andrew Druckenbrod, Post-Gazette Classical Music Writer
Jerry Hadley's most vivid memory of Pennsylvania is not what you'd expect from America's celebrated tenor. In August 1977, he was moving cross country from Illinois to take a job at the University of Connecticut.
"I crossed the Ohio-Pennsylvania border on Route 80 and they announced the King had died," says Hadley. "I pulled off the side of the road ... and wept like a baby 'cause Elvis was dead."
When he finally took to the highway again, he found himself in a massive ad hoc funeral procession, as numerous truck drivers drove 20 miles an hour in honor of Presley.
"It took me three days to drive across Pennsylvania."
The incident highlights the tenor's expansive tastes and interests, making him one of the most atypical singers in the business today. Indeed, if variety is the spice of life, then Hadley's career qualifies as a whole rack.
He's tackled to great acclaim nearly every major operatic role a tenor could sing, some of them more than 200 times. He also relishes singing more obscure parts, or even ones outside of classical music, as he did singing in Paul McCartney's "Liverpool Oratorio." It's for this kind of work that he's been called the "The King" himself -- that is, the "king of crossover." That reputation also stems from his recording of Leonard Bernstein's "Candide" and other Broadway shows like "Showboat" and "Man of La Mancha." Finally, he's an accomplished recitalist whose preferences range from the classics to Ned Rorem.
Hadley, 47, will perform the title role in Massenet's "Werther" with the Pittsburgh Opera opening tomorrow. It unites him with director Tito Capobianco for the first time in years -- 21 years, to be exact. The scene of their first meeting was one of the most crucial in the young Hadley's career: his New York debut at City Opera. He sang in Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" in a Capobianco production. "He was the first stage director that I worked with at a big opera house," says Hadley.
Capobianco laughs when he recalls the situation: "He was scared, very scared. He would look at all of us and say, 'Tell me what I am doing now, what is next.' " Anxiety aside, the singer impressed the director from the beginning. Capobianco called his combination of robust voice, lack of egotism and eagerness to learn "a blessing." And the director feels that qualities shown there have not diminished as time went on. "He has a totally open mind," says Capobianco. "He is permanently receptive to suggestion, eager to improve."
The desire to improve and continue learning has manifest itself in Hadley's love for history. And not just music history. Since he's been in Pittsburgh for rehearsals, he's been contemplating fitting in a quick jaunt to Gettysburg. He becomes something of a historian himself when preparing for a performance. Doing "homework," as he calls it, has been the kind of thing that critics like and directors favor, spurring on his career.
"He's a very well-read man, and he prepares for the roles very thoughtfully," says F. Paul Driscoll, managing editor for Opera News. "He's a scrupulous musician, extremely honest in the way he approaches a role."
The idea behind the studying, of course, is that it helps inform the performance, deepening it. "His ability to communicate a composer's intention in music and words comes across in his opera performances," affirms Driscoll.
Hadley's love for history was sparked by his Italian-born grandfather, who inserted some cosmopolitan flair into his Illinois farm life by introducing him to famous singers like Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini.
"I can remember listening to those records with him when I was a preschooler," recalls Hadley, who continues to go to old recordings for inspiration. "I obviously can't listen to people singing when Donizetti and Rossini were alive, but I can listen to people who worked with people who knew [them]. We can't re-create a past we didn't live in, but we [can] try to get as close as we can."
It was natural, then, for Hadley to augment his usual preparatory routine when he was cast as Jay Gatsby in the Metropolitan Opera's premiere in December of John Harbison's "The Great Gatsby." Hadley spent over a year reading about the culture of the time, especially focusing on the effects that World War I had on the American psyche.
"To modern readers, that whole thing kind of gets missed, but it's profound, certainly on Jay Gatsby," he says. "If someone were writing today an opera about people coming of age in the '70s all you'd have to say is he served tours of duty in Vietnam, end of story."
Critical and public opinion of "Gatsby" was mixed, with a leaning toward negative reviews. Also, many critics felt Hadley's performance lacked its usual effectiveness in evoking the essence of the character. If Hadley was bothered by the response, he seems to have let go of it. However, he is an opinionated man, and has plenty to retort.
"You can't always expect everyone to get it," says Hadley. "Unfortunately, we are living in a world where we're bombarded with so much stuff all the time. What seems to make people comfortable is something that is easily definable, digestible, pigeonholed and categorized."
Hadley adamantly defends Harbison's creation, though he thinks the composer "will tweak it." "There's not a single great masterpiece that I know of that didn't undergo revisions."
Hadley ultimately thinks that he, Harbison and others will be vindicated. "Knowing a little bit about history is very helpful. [Critics] hated 'La Traviata,' they hated 'La Boheme' when it was premiered."
Hadley's not short of opinions about other aspects of the music world today, either.
On Andrea Bocelli: Perhaps surprisingly, Hadley supports the visually impaired Italian singer with a pop background who has lorded over the classical charts. "I think that all of the flak that Andrea Bocelli has taken is bogus," he says. "Mr. Bocelli has a beautiful voice, he's extremely expressive." If he didn't have his physical impairment, suggests Hadley, "he might have had a whole different career."
Hadley thinks unneeded insecurities drive much of the Bocelli backlash. "I think that people fear that a phenomenon like Andrea Bocelli will change in a heartbeat our perception of the way opera should sound," he says. "Human beings should be given more credit than that." The issue has become too personal, as well, and Hadley thinks singers have lost sight of the bigger picture. "The success of another person in no way diminishes me; if another tenor fails, it in no way elevates me."
On performers today: "One of the things that I find frightening is how little curiosity and how little passion most of the students that I meet have," says Hadley. Younger singers, he says, often don't show enough interest in past masters. "You don't have to copy those people, but you have to emulate them. We live in an age that is so arrogant as to believe that everything that has happened before us doesn't matter. That's why when you go to the opera today, performing is becoming generic."
Hadley feels that many performers today worry about, "Is it all together? Is it all vertically lined up?" instead of taking risks. "It is sterile," he says. "Individuality and risk-taking is viewed as trouble-making in our profession. If Caruso came back today, he probably wouldn't be hired anywhere, because he's too much of an individual."
It's not all doom and gloom in the tenor's eyes, "There are still those islands of sanity, where people say, take the risk, that's why we hired you," he says. He feels that Capobianco is one of those maestros.
How long will Hadley himself continue singing? "There's a lot of music that I love to sing that doesn't require the chops that you need to sing some of the really big, heroic tenor parts," he says. Hadley cites his affinity for American song, and his openness to learn new parts as major reasons why his career will have longevity. "Fortunately, there are lots of roles that lie well within my capabilities which I can continue to do well well into my 60s." Roles such as Werther, Idomeneo and Captain Vere.
But he draws a line in the sand. "If I feel like I wouldn't want to pay to hear me do it I think I'll stop." Only such high standards to the very end would be appropriate for Hadley.
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Starring: Pittsburgh Opera with Jerry Hadley, Ruxandra Donose, Melanie Vaccari, Andrew Krikawa; Tito Capobianco, director, Brian Garman, conductor.