CLEVELAND AP An opera singer who was said to be distraught over a bad rehearsal hanged himself in a hospital psychiatric ward. Edward Russell White a 6-foot-6 1.98 meter bass-baritone was found Sunday hanging by a bedsheet tied to a cast-iron sewer pipe at the Cleveland Clinic. He had been taken to the clinic from his hotel room where on Friday night he had taken 80 pills of a medication to treat seizures or panic attacks police Sgt. Mark Hastings said. Opera officials said White 46 was upset following a Friday rehearsal for the Cleveland Opera's upcoming production of ``Lucia di Lammermoor.'' ``There is pressure in show business but nobody asked him to do the impossible'' said David Bamberger general director of the opera. ``He apparently had very deeply seated insecurities.'' Ambulance workers who took White to the hospital on Saturday said he told them he wanted to die. A doctor diagnosed White as severely depressed. In his room White had stuffed his bed with blankets to make it appear he was in it hospital officials said. He was found unconscious and taken to the emergency room where he died. White was from East Orange New Jersey and used the stage name Edward Russell in recent years. He appeared in opera productions in the United States and in Europe including a performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's ballet-opera ``Mlada'' with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1988. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1990 as the undertaker in ``Porgy and Bess.'' He performed several times with the Cleveland Opera in productions such as ``Fidelio'' in 1991 ``Rigoletto'' in 1996 and ``The Flying Dutchman'' last year. White arrived last week in Cleveland to replace a singer who became ill but had plenty of time to rehearse and was upbeat about the role Bamberger said. Bamberger also saw White after the drug overdose. ``He said he was hoping to be out of the hospital in time to do the show'' he said. ``This is such a shock. He was ... a most fun and pleasant person. I guess there was a level of pain that we didn't see.'' APW19981201.0995.txt.body.html APW19981201.1243.txt.body.html