Klarinet Archive - Posting 000793.txt from 2001/06

From: "Kenneth Wolman" <kwolman@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] playing M.Butterfly--what to do?
Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2001 12:44:23 -0400

Anton Coppola may be 99 years old, but he is still very much around and he
conducts in my neighborhood, the Jersey Shore, as music director of the
MetroLyric Opera. Last summer they did La Traviata and Faust; this summer
they are performing Aida and Rigoletto. They go where they can get space.
Last summer they worked in the Convention Center theater in Asbury Park,
and this year they will be in the Count Basie Theater in Red Bank, the town
Kevin Smith made famous:-).

Coppola is a good conductor and a magnet for really good singers--both
young and veteran--who want to work at roles that have passed them by.
Last summer Coppola induced one of his favorite sopranos, Faith Esham, to
do a last minute replacement as Marguerite in Faust. Faith Esham is 53,
she's been around the Met in New York for years but got royally screwed
there as elsewhere in the States, her career has been centered in Europe
and in high school auditoriums in New Hampshire (the last part is a line
from the New York Press). She has gas galore left in the tank.

I gather Coppola is a better composer than he is a conductor and
impresario, and that his "Sacco and Vanzetti" is worthy to stand with major
works by Douglas Moore, Samuel Barber, and John Corigliano--if you like
melodists in modern opera, which I happen to because I'm hopelessly
retro:-). I've not heard it. It's remarkable to me what goes unrecorded:
Argento's "Aspern Papers" I believe is a masterpiece but as far as I know
it's not on CD OR videotape. And Coppola gets produced in the boonies but
not recorded. Go figure. Or better, go record.

Ken
----------------------------
Kenneth Wolman http://www.kenwolman.com

"...perhaps we really complete those we love, fulfill their finally
unchanging essence, when they're gone from us, when we take into ourselves
their portions of them still available to us, to acknowledge them more
perfectly, more purely, and do homage to the fugitive, protean forms of
love of, and love from."--C.K. Williams, "Misgivings"

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ann H Satterfield [mailto:annhsatt@-----.com]
> Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2001 12:13 PM
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: Re: [kl] playing M.Butterfly--what to do?
>
>
>
> On Sun, 24 Jun 2001 05:56:57 -0700 Daniel Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
> writes:
> > Tony Copola is still alive???? He must be 99 years old. I remember
> > doing a performance of Faust with him at least 30 years ago and he
> > was not a young man then.
>
> [snip]
>
> > He knows his operas.
>
> Copola has been conductor for a series of productions in Tampa, and is
> 80-somthing years old.
>
> I find it interesting (but not necessarily significant) that the wind
> players comment about how knowledgable he is, and the string players
> comment that he is picky.
>
> Ann
>
> Ann Satterfield
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Central Florida~~~~~~~
> Principal clarinet, Imperial SO & Music Manager, ISO
> Adjunct Faculty & Instrumental Assistant PolkCC
>
>
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