BlogBack on Hadley: Denver Music Critic Defends Tough Appraisals
Marc Shulgold, music critic for the Rocky Mountain News, Denver, takes issue with Did Reviews Kill Jerry Hadley?:
I'm betting that few in our professsion would agree with your take about Jerry Hadley. Clearly, this was a troubled soul. And, almost as clear is the fact that his troubles were hardly the critics' fault.
Those who strut and fret upon the stage do so with the understanding that they are putting their lives and careers on the line, and that they may not be loved for the work they do. Thus, they must develop thick skins. You are suggesting that we be mindful of the sensitive feelings of those we review. Hogwash, sez I.
Integrity must be at the bottom of any journalist's work. That will counter any claims of prejudice or mean-spiritedness. An opera director whose work I panned wrote me and suggested that it would be better in my eyes if he were dead. Not so, I told him: I didn't want him to die, I just didn't like his little show.
Jerry Hadley was a nice tenor, but hardly a great one. I'm sorry he's dead, and I'm sorry he was depressed and suicidal. But don't blame the critics. He was doing his job and we were doing ours. We just report what we see and hear. We can't worry too much about hurt feelings. If we did, we'd be looking for other work.
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LEE ROSENBAUM I'm a veteran cultural journalist with many pieces in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and major art magazines. I have been a cultural contributor on New York Public Radio (WNYC and WQXR) and have provided arts commentary on NPR and public radio stations in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. I am a HuffPost Arts writer. I've been profiled on the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer's Art Beat and in the Chicago Reader. I've appeared as an art-market commentator on BBC-TV and have published numerous Op-Ed pieces in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. I am author of The Complete Guide to Collecting Art (Knopf) and have lectured on cultural property issues at the New Acropolis Museum and the University of Pennsylvania, on deaccessioning at at Investigative Reporters and Editors 2011 Annual Meeting, Columbia Law School, the University of Iowa and a conference of the Museum Association of New York, on museum governance and cultural property issues at Seton Hall University, on arts blogging at American University and on Smithsonian exhibition controversies at Rutgers University.
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