First opera for Sofia Coppola
2007-02-09 16:39
Paris - US film-maker Sofia Coppola is to stage her first opera, Puccini's romantic tragedy Manon Lescaut, at the Montpellier Opera house in southern France during its 2009-2010 season.
Coppola's maiden try at opera, which will include directing sensitive French tenor Robert Alagna, responsible for a bundle of headaches at Milan's La Scala late last year, was announced on Wednesday by the Montpellier Opera authorities.
Francis Ford Coppola Day
In fact the entire Coppola family is to be feted by the southern French city next July.
A music festival from July 11 to 28, run by Rene Koering who heads the Opera, is to feature a special Francis Ford Coppola Day on July 19, with the city orchestra playing music from his movies The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, written by his late father Carmine Coppola.
During the concert, Alagna will play the Chevalier Des Grieux from Act IV of Puccini's Manon Lescaut, his third and at the time most successful opera, as a prelude to Coppola's 2009-2010 staging.
Roberto Alagna 'the greatest tenor alive'
Meanwhile Sofia Coppola's mother Eleanor is not being left out. Her art works are to be displayed at a special exhibit at the city's just-opened Musee Fabre.
The 35-year-old film-maker, whose companion Thomas Mars is the singer of the French rock group Phoenix, has given music a special place in her three films to date.
Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation feature French electro-pop duo Air, while Marie-Antoinette has mainly contemporary sounds, and just a hint of classical.
Alagna, who is 43 and described by Koering as "the greatest tenor alive", often sings at Montpellier and made a successful return to the stage there last weekend, less than two months after walking out of La Scala during the staging of Verdi's Aida, when he heard a few boos from the audience.