Born: 1951 (?) - Ashland, Kansas, USA
Died: January 14, 1991 - Wichita, Kansas, USA |
The American counter-tenor, Rodney Hardesty, studied music in London as a Fulbright Scholar. As a soloist with the English Bach Festival, he appeared in Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and in France at the Palace of Versailles. In 1977, Leonard Bernstein invited him to sing J.S. Bach’s Magnificat (BWV 243) at the Royal Festival Hall in London.
Rodney Hardesty made his New York debut in 1979 in the USA premiere of Steffani's 18th-century opera La Liberta Contenta with the Clarion Opera Society. Among his other operatic appearances were those in Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea with the Long Beach, California, and Washington Opera companies, and Peter Sellars's production of George Frideric Handel's Julius Caesar at Pepsico Summerfare in Purchase, New York.
Rodney Hardesty died on January 15, 1991 in Wichita, Kansas. He was 40 years old and lived in East Orange, New Jersey. He died of complications from a perforated colon. |