Four classical music greats left us in 2007
Our annual retrospective of the major figures in classical music who left us during the year is especially significant for 2007 with the list including the deaths of four of the world's most honored and respected performers: tenors Luciano Pavarotti and Jerry Hadley, cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich and soprano Beverly Sills.
I'll discuss them in the order they died.
Mstislav Rostropovich, who died in Moscow on April 27 at age 80, was so widely respected that nearly all of the leading composers of the second half of the 20th century wrote and dedicated solo and orchestral cello works for him. They included Dmitri Shostakovich, Serge Prokofiev, Witold Lutoslawski, Krzysztof Penderecki, Aram Khachaturian and numerous others.
Rostropovich took up conducting later in his career and had a well-regarded tenure as music director of Washington's National Symphony Orchestra. He was a frequent guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony.
Rostropovich was also a world leader in human rights, and he was such an opponent of the oppressive Soviet regime that eventually his citizenship was revoked. The great cellist got the final laugh when, days after the communist regime fell in late 1989, he performed a concert of solo cello works while sitting amid the rubble of the Berlin wall.
Beverly Sills, who died July 2 at age 78, was the best-known American-born opera singer in the 1960s and 1970s, and when her career ended, she became a legend as an arts administrator, television host and arguably the most persuasive fund-raiser the New York performing arts community has ever seen.
Sills was best known for her performances in coloratura soprano roles, in particular operas by the Italian composers Bellini and Donizetti. Thankfully, a series of recordings with her New York City Opera colleague, conductor Julius Rudel, has preserved her artistry from its prime years.
Sills' television work included guest-host appearances on "The Tonight Show" and as the longtime host of PBS' "Live from Lincoln Center" anthology series.
After retiring from the stage, Sills became the general manager of the New York City Opera, the company that nurtured her career until a belated 1975 debut at the Metropolitan Opera.
The Brooklyn native also worked tireless hours for charities, including raising awareness of the prevention and treatment of birth defects. In 1980, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Jerry Hadley died July 18 at age 55 of an apparent suicide in his upstate New York home. The central Illinois-born tenor was a fixture at Lyric Opera of Chicago in the 1980s and '90s.
Hadley was a protegé of soprano Dame Joan Sutherland and her husband, conductor Richard Bonynge. He received three Grammy awards for his vocal performances: Leos Janacek's "Jenufa" (2004, for Best Opera Recording), Carlisle Floyd's "Susannah" (1995, for Best Opera Recording) and Leonard Bernstein's "Candide" (1992, for Best Classical Album).
Hadley's Lyric Opera debut was in "The Merry Widow" in 1986, and he went on to sing more than 80 performances of 11 leading roles, a record by the company for an American-born tenor.
The fourth member of this impressive list is, of course, Luciano Pavarotti, who died Sept. 6 at age 71 at his Modena, Italy, home after a 1½-year battle with cancer.
Pavarotti, whose vocal prime coincided with that of Sills (the 1960s and '70s), was already an international star when he joined fellow tenors Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras for an outdoor concert in Rome during the 1990 World Cup.
Although many purists despised the concept, "The Three Tenors" became a worldwide popular culture phenomenon, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars in ticket sales, recordings and TV appearances.
Pavarotti's major breakthrough in the United States came on Feb. 17, 1972, in a production of Donizetti's "Daughter of the Regiment" at the Metropolitan Opera.