Around the Music Festival

Anton Coppola of the United States died on March 9 at his home in Manhattan, New York. He mainly conducts Italian opera at an opera company in the United States. He was the founder of Opera Tampa in Central Florida and was artistic director until 2012.

He is the uncle of film director Francis Ford Coppola.

He was born in an Italian immigrant family and grew up in East Harlem, New York. His uncle is the owner of a popular barber shop, and he was taken by an uncle to an opera from an early age. At the age of eight, he joined the Metropolitan Opera Children’s Choir.

During World War II, he served as bandmaster of the military band and conductor of the music hall.

After the war, he was the director of the orchestra and opera department at the Manhattan School of Music, and was the music director for several Broadway theaters in the 1950s and 1960s.

He debuted at the New York City Opera in 1965 and directed the world premiere of Jack Bison’s opera “Lizzie Borden”. In 1970 he also directed the world premiere of Carlyle Floyd’s “Of Mice and Men” at the Seattle Opera.

He founded Opera Tampa in 1996. Until he retired in 2012, he stood on the podium and in 2001 premiered his own opera “Sacco and Vanzetti”.

In 2004 he directed the Milano Giuseppe Verdi Symphony Orchestra on the aria album by Soprano singer Angela Gheorghiu.

Photo：Opera Tampa