External links
- Information Britain
- John Copley at IMDb
- "Copley, John Michael Harold", The Riverside Dictionary of Biography
- Interview with John Copley by Bruce Duffie, January 14, 1989
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John Copley | |
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| Born | 12 June 1933 Birmingham, West Midlands, England, UK |
| Occupation(s) | Theatre and opera producer |
| Spouse(s) | John Hugh Chadwyck-Healey (civil partner 2006–2014) |
John Michael Harold Copley CBE (born 12 June 1933), [1] is a British theatre and opera producer and director.
He was born in Birmingham to Ernest and Lilian (née Forbes) Copley, and attended King Edward VI Five Ways grammar school. After a brief career as an actor, he became stage manager at Sadler's Wells in 1953 and resident producer for The Royal Opera, Covent Garden, in 1972. He has produced most of the standard operatic repertoire for many opera houses and festivals in Europe, the United States, and Canada. He is also an accomplished pianist and singer. He has had a long association with Opera Australia, including the Australian premiere of Leoš Janáček's Jenůfa in 1974. [2] [3]
The filmed operas he has been associated with are:
For over 50 years Copley was the partner of John Hugh Chadwyck-Healey (1922–2014), grandson of Charles Chadwyck-Healey, 1st Baronet. In 2006, they contracted a civil partnership, which Copley described when he was a guest on the BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs programme on 3 January 2010. [4]
Copley was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to opera. [5]
In January 2018, during choir rehearsals for a revival of Copley's 1990 production of Rossini's Semiramide at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, [6] Copley coached the singers to show reactions to the appearance of Nino's ghost at the end of act 1. He suggested that he would "imagine the character naked" which prompted a complaint from a chorister. The Met's manager Peter Gelb then fired Copley, citing a different account of the complaint. Gelb's action has been described as a "witch hunt" and been widely criticised by other cast members, opera singers and managers. The American Guild of Musical Artists also considered Gelb's response to be inappropriate, and "believed the episode could have been resolved amicably". At the time of Copley's firing, the Met was investigating allegations of sexual misconduct made by four former students against former music director James Levine, details of whose private life were said to have been widely known; in these circumstances the company made sure in reporting on its decision regarding Copley to emphasise its "strong policies in place relating to workplace behaviour (placing) paramount importance on the welfare of its artists and staff". [7] [8] [9]
Mr John Copley, opera director, 80
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Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, music theorist, folklorist, publicist, and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and other Slavic music, including Eastern European folk music, to create an original, modern musical style.
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Albert Rosen was an Austrian-born and Czech/Irish-naturalised conductor associated with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, the Wexford Festival, the National Theatre in Prague and J. K. Tyl Theatre in Plzeň (Pilsen). He had a strong affinity with the works of Czech composers such as Smetana, Dvořák, Martinů and Janáček.
Ivor Bolton is an English conductor and harpsichordist.
Lothar Koenigs is a German conductor.
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Eilene Hannan AM was an Australian operatic soprano with an international reputation. She was particularly associated with opera sung in English, although she also sang in other languages. She was as well known as an actress as she was a singer. Her repertoire included Mozart's Pamina, Susanna, Cherubino, Dorabella and Zerlina; Mimì in Puccini's La bohème; Natasha Rostova in Prokofiev's War and Peace; Tatiana in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin; Marzelline in Beethoven's Fidelio; Mélisande in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande; Blanche in Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites; the title roles in Janáček's Káťa Kabanová, Jenůfa and The Cunning Little Vixen; the Marschallin in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier; Princess Eboli in Verdi's Don Carlos; Pat Nixon in Adams' Nixon in China; Wagner's Sieglinde and Venus; Salome in Massenet's Hérodiade; and Monteverdi's Poppea.
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