| Anton Coppola | |
 | |
| Birth: | 21 March 1917 Ocean Hill, Brooklyn, USA |
| Death: | 9 March 2020 Manhattan, USA |
| Age: | 102 years, 354 days |
| Country: |  USA
|
| Centenarian | |
Anton Coppola (born Antonio Francesco Coppola) (21 March 1917 – 9 March 2020) was an American centenarian, opera conductor and composer.
Biography[]
Antonio Coppola was born on 21 March 1917, in Ocean Hill, Brooklyn, but grew up mostly in East Harlem. His parents were Italian immigrants. His father Agostino Coppola was a toolmaker; his mother Maria (Zasa) Coppola was a homemaker. He was the fifth of seven brothers, all of whom were encouraged to study music. He made his debut in 1947 with the San Carlo Opera Company, which was mainly a touring troupe, in a production of “Carmen” mounted at the resplendently Art Deco-style Center Theater in Rockefeller Center, a former movie palace that was demolished in 1954.
Coppola had a role in the family film business, appearing as the conductor of the opera “Cavalleria Rusticana” in a scene from “Godfather III” (1990) and conducting the score to his nephew Francis Ford Coppola’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (1992). He contributed to the family art into his 90s. A later generation of Coppolas — the cousins Roman Coppola (son of Francis Ford Coppola) and Jason Schwartzman (son of his niece Talia Shire) — recruited him to appear in “Mozart in the Jungle,” their Amazon series about classical music musicians in New York. Anton Coppola was also a granduncle of actor Nicolas Cage.
Coppola died on 9 March 2020, at his home in Manhattan, aged 102 years, 354 days.
Gallery[]
References[]
- Anton Coppola, Opera Conductor in Filmmaking Clan, Dies at 102 The New York Times, 9 March 2020