“Anton Coppola led Opera Tampa through 17 seasons,” writes Andrew Meacham in Friday’s (2/7) Tampa Bay Times (FL). “He retired seven years ago at 95. Two years ago, the opera built its annual gala around his 100th birthday, where he conducted parts of an opera he had written, Sacco and Vanzetti, and debuted his revised ending to Puccini’s Turandot. A month before his 102nd birthday, Coppola is back to unveil what he has been working on since, Lady Swanwhite [which debuted on February 9 in Tampa].… He adapted the story from Swanwhite by Swedish playwright August Strindberg…. The idea for the opera germinated in 2017 … with a package from his nephew, film director Francis Ford Coppola. ‘He sent me this short drama by Strindberg,’ Coppola said. ‘He said, “Uncle, I think this is an opera.” ’ … He had no plans to produce Swanwhite until last spring, when Straz Center president Judith Lisi paid him a visit. The 2018-19 Opera Tampa season had been set, Lisi said, but she changed it after she heard Coppola play some of the score…. With a chamber orchestra and no chorus, the 90-minute Swanwhite is … spare.”
Posted February 12, 2019
