John Copley

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is the opera director John Copley. Throughout his sixty year career he's worked with all the greats at the major opera houses of the world. His acclaimed production of Labo M is still performed after more than thirty years. He was ten when he says he caught opera like the measles. Yet with parents who would lock up the piano to stop him playing, it seems remarkable he established a career in music at all. They wanted him to be a priest.

Presenter1:02

I was a little bit of a star, he says, and that's what my family didn't like. You weren't supposed to be a star. You'd end up getting a thick ear and being called a big girl's blouse.

Presenter1:13

Uh John Copley, a desert island discs in fact holds a special place in your family folklore. Tell me about the the music. You used to.

John Copley1:21

Well, the introduction to this programme was used in a pantomime which my parents took me we went to the panto always and it was da da da da di da da da da di and it was the ballet sequence and I went home and I was already theatre mad and I learnt the little dance that went to it. So whenever the Desertino discs came on I used to get up and do my little dance and my father would give me a great clout of dust the big girl's blouse.

Presenter1:48

And did your father have a point insofar as, you know, the Big Girl Splice thing? Has it has it been a professional career full of tantrums and tiaras?

John Copley1:56

Well, do you mean the people I've dealt with? Yes. Oh, well, of course. Some of them are ferocious big girls, you know. I mean some of them are quite scary.

Presenter1:58

Oh

Presenter2:03

As I say, you have worked with all the big names, and hopefully we'll hear more about some of them later. But I want to ask you right now, briefly, about Pavarotti. You directed him in his debut in London in was it nineteen sixty three?

John Copley2:13

Yes, I did.

Presenter2:14

What are your memories through from that particular time?

John Copley2:16

Well, he was a lovely lad, and he was rather lonely. He hadn't been to London before. And he came to our house, and he used to go to Soho and bring a big bag of groceries and cook pasta sauce. And we'd get the ballet girls round,'cause he was very keen on the ballet girls, and he'd sing a bit, and I'd play the piano for him, and they were just it was so very informal, and he was just a lovely, lovely guy.

Presenter2:39

It's intriguing the way that you've described him. I wonder I mean, you you became friends with him, you knew him throughout his his life. How did the magnitude of his success change him?

John Copley2:48

Well, it's like all famous people, they will tell you it's the pressure on them to g give what is sometimes so difficult. You know, he was a perfectly ordinarily educated boy, and I'm afraid it did go to his head eventually, and, you know, he was so famous. I mean, what else do you expect?

Presenter3:10

Were you as a good friend able to have conversations with him about that or was it

John Copley3:14

I could sometimes um stamp my foot a little bit and say, No, come on, Luciani, you can't do that. But you had to be very careful because he was. We worked in Berlin, we did Le Li Zidamori in Berlin, and I think we got the Guinness Book of Records for the longest applause for any opera performance. It went on for about fifty-five minutes or something at the end of the show. And he was quite pleased about that. And I remember him picking up the phone because Herbert, his agent, wasn't there, and he said, Hello, Herbert Nottier.

John Copley3:47

And he said, Well, I can tell you Herbert Notty, but I can tell you we start in one million, and that's without the T shirt.

John Copley3:55

And I said to him, You don't mean one million a performance? He said, Yeah, but without a T-shirt, Joe, the merchandise is extra.

John Copley4:03

So that was, you know, that was an amazing moment.

Presenter4:07

There's so many tales to tell, and hopefully we shall hear more of them, but first of all, tell me about the first piece of music we're going to hear today.

John Copley4:14

Well, Maria Callas had an enormous effect on me. 1964 was a very important year. I had already directed Tosca three times at Covent Garden, but this was the new production with Zeffirelli, and I was the assistant, and I was very thrilled to be his assistant, because it was going to be him, and it was going to be Maria Callas and Gobby, and I just I couldn't wait. And she was terribly nice to me, and I learnt an enormous amount. And then she was ill for the three orchestra rehearsals, and we didn't have an understudy. And I actually was the only one who knew it, knew what she did, and I did know the part absolutely backwards. And so I did all her rehearsals for her with orchestra. And out of that came my first new production, because the management were all there. And I think.

John Copley5:00

I had saved their bacon, actually, because they couldn't have done the rehearsals if I hadn't been there.

John Copley5:05

So I got a reward, I got my first new production.

Speaker 45:23

This of your spirit

Presenter5:57

Maria Callas singing Vienne Deletto, Come Beloved, from Bellini's I Puritani. Um you were saying to me, John Copley, that that was a recording Maria Callas was happy with, and that didn't happen often.

John Copley6:07

Yeah.

John Copley6:09

Well, I did say to her I just loved this recording, and she said Yes, it's one of the ones that I was was happy with. And when I listen to her, even now after all these years, I can always tell from the sound she makes what she's thinking.

John Copley6:23

Um it's always very, very clear her mix of of text and music, which is what obsesses me. And all the singers that I've chosen to take to the island are singers who don't just make sounds, they make sounds with text.

Presenter6:36

Let's talk for a moment about the early years. You were born and brought up in Birmingham, a long way from the Royal Opera House and its corridors. What was life like?

John Copley6:43

That's cool.

John Copley6:45

Well, I w I went to King Edward's school and I had a good time. It was during the war and we did lots and lots of plays and because it was a boys' school, I generally did the girls' parts. I did Eliza Doolittle in um in Pygmalion and I did Helena in Midsummer Night's Dream, which I didn't like very much'cause I wasn't the leading lady in there. And I did Lady M in the Scottish

John Copley7:06

And then I left, and then I went to the Royal Ballet School, so that was the end of my dramatic career.

Presenter7:12

Tell me about your mum and dad then. Your your father was a businessman, but very sporty.

John Copley7:15

Yes, he was very much involved with cricket and and hockey. He was an international hockey umpire.

John Copley7:21

And my brother, my elder brother, who is extremely handsome, was a wonderful cricketer, so I was always sort of the ugly duckly.

Presenter7:29

Were you sporty too? I know.

John Copley7:30

No, no, I just wanted to play the piano and sing. Yeah. Arias.

Presenter7:33

Yeah.

Presenter7:34

And your father, this plain-speaking Yorkshireman, uh tell me more about how he responded to that. It is true, is it, that they locked the piano?

John Copley7:41

Oh yes, yes. It was particularly when I started uh singing Aida. Um that was the last straw I think. What was what was his problem with it?

John Copley7:49

I think he thought it was pansy. Right. You know I wasn't going out and kicking a football. But anyway, I ended up as a pansy, so it didn't really.

Presenter7:57

Yeah.

Presenter7:58

And was that that was just implicit? I mean, in those days, of course, people didn't talk about that sort of thing.

John Copley8:03

No, no, no, no, it's within the in the forties and you were expected to go out and play football. I mean I played hockey and I played rugby and I didn't mind those. But um I loved the theatre and I was in the school choir and I sang solo and I I was at church. I mean I went to church all the time and I sang solo in the church. So my love of music started I don't know where it came from. Was it clear from the beginning that

Presenter8:24

You were a talented boy.

John Copley8:26

I don't know. I don't I've never thought of that. I've been an interested boy. I mean, I've always wanted to do it. I've always gone out and done it, clawed my way through. I mean, I'm not very bright, I'm not very well educated, and I don't have a very good brain, but I've got a very good instinct, and I've got a determination, which is scary.

Presenter8:46

Let's have some more music. Tell me about the second uh disc type.

John Copley8:48

Oh well, my father would come to London to umpire hockey matches or he'd go to Amsterdam or wherever. And my mother and I would stay in London for the weekend and we went to the theatre and we went to the Covent Garden and we saw the sleeping beauty. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. And when Margaret Fontaine did the Rosedagio and she did those balances on point with her arms so beautifully arched, I did actually, I nearly died and I thought I'm going to work in this place. I don't care whether I'm a lavatory cleaner or what. But I was absolutely in that those few minutes it made a huge change in my life. And I got there eventually. You know, I'm still there.

Presenter10:31

The Rosadagio from The Sleeping Beauty by Tchaikovsky. You were saying during that, John Copley, that you would dance on the island using the palm trees.

John Copley10:38

Yes, I'd find four trees that I could practise my balance.

Presenter10:42

The priesthood, then, it seemed an

John Copley10:44

attractive option for your parents? Was the music you know, the church music attracted me tremendously and I thought it would be it was a sort of escape. You know, if I was in the priest business, it was okay. You know, music

Presenter10:45

Parents

John Copley10:58

in terms of the church was okay. You say an escape. An escape from what? Well, I mean, I was escaping from all that sports stuff and the world that I didn't really find very comfortable.

Presenter11:10

So you did s I mean you seriously considered the idea that your life would would be in religion and that

John Copley11:15

Yes, because it was connected to music. Right. That was really the only reason it was it was an escape into a musical world.

Presenter11:17

I got

Presenter11:21

You've said that at school I didn't learn anything except how to act, deliver lines and be a diva.

John Copley11:29

Still be in good stead.

Presenter11:30

You've always you've had the taste for the grand gesture then, even from being a

John Copley11:30

You've always

John Copley11:34

Well, I don't know. I did I picked up very early on that if you're doing the leading role in something you are different. Now that sounds so conceited and megamaniacal. But, you know, if you're doing Eliza Doolittle, you're the leading lady, and you get more attention and you get better frocks and you have more rehearsal.

Presenter11:54

You feel that you understand the Diva.

John Copley11:56

Oh, I do. No, there's no question about that. And I think the Divas would tell you that I'm quite good with them.

Presenter12:02

Has that been a very important part of your success living?

John Copley12:04

Totally totally. I am very good with them.

Presenter12:07

Tell me about the time that your mother took you to La Boheme then, agen, when I said you you caught opera like the measles.

John Copley12:15

Well, it was a performance by Sadderswell's opera on tour during the war, and it was Joan Cross who was singing um Mimi, and Arthur's servant was singing Rudolph, and can you believe that I can remember that?

Presenter12:25

What did your ten-year-old friends make of your behaviour? I can't imagine that they were studying Tosca and standing at the stage door.

John Copley12:32

My school friends didn't have any.

Presenter12:32

Yeah, because

John Copley12:34

Uh

Presenter12:35

Right.

John Copley12:35

Yeah.

Presenter12:35

Yeah.

John Copley12:35

Didn't have any

Presenter12:36

Opera and ballet was enough then.

John Copley12:38

Yes, absolutely. It was totally in involving. I saved up all my money. I did a newspaper round or worked in a green grocery shop at weekends to get money so that I could buy records, I could go to the the theater, and I saw all these amazing people.

John Copley12:54

I mean, it was all I was interested in.

Presenter12:57

Let's have some music. Tell me what's next.

John Copley12:59

I think it's um Ella Fitzgerald.

John Copley13:02

And this is another singer that I absolutely am crazy about.

John Copley13:06

And I think the Rogers and Hart songs are just irresistible. It's a very romantic song, and I'm I'm very connected and concerned about love in people's lives, and I think if you listen to this um it touches your heart, which is what life should be about, really.

Presenter13:09

Yeah.

Speaker 413:09

Uh

Presenter13:09

Uh

Speaker 313:24

Now I've met Sergio's. And we'll keep on

Speaker 413:34

Unmeeting till we die Sir Jones and I

Presenter13:47

Ella Fitzgerald and Have You Met Miss Jones? And as that came on, John Copley, you said that's exactly what happened to me. It describes exactly as you fell in love. It did. That was nineteen sixty

John Copley13:54

It describes exactly as you fell in love. That was 1960.

Presenter13:58

Yeah.

John Copley13:59

Where did you meet? We met in the office. He was stage managing at Covent Garden, and he was sitting at my desk.

John Copley14:06

And I walked in, I was a bit aggressive. I thought, Who's that sitting at my desk? And I walked across in a rather aggressive way, and he just looked up and said, I'm terribly sorry, am I in your way? and I said, No, stay there.

John Copley14:20

And he stayed there for nearly fifty years, so that's it.

Presenter14:23

In those few moments between the the aggression and the love, then, what what occurred to you? Was he terribly good looking?

John Copley14:29

Yes, the biggest blue eyes you've ever seen and just very, very nice, and he's been so kind and

John Copley14:34

It's perfect.

Presenter14:35

But that was 1960, of course. This was a time when homosexuality was still illegal.

John Copley14:40

Well, then we were illegal.

Presenter14:40

Well

Presenter14:43

But it uh the reason I'm asking that of course is because it it's not as it would be now. T two women, two men fall in love and most people accept it. You know, don't bother at all. But back then people did bother. Did did you feel compromised by that?

John Copley14:50

And get on with it.

John Copley14:55

Uh no, I do remember lots of people saying, Oh, those two seem to be doing something, give them about three weeks or six weeks or something and and then we saw all these people divorcing and splitting up and, you know, over now, you know, fifty years. So

Presenter15:10

What was your parents' reaction to your partner?

John Copley15:12

Um my father died quite soon. My mother was very jealous because he was um very well bred and he was posh. So my mother rather wished it'd been her.

Presenter15:15

My m

John Copley15:26

Yes.

Presenter15:27

Did she get on very well with him?

John Copley15:28

She got unreasonable when he but he's such a gent. Um but she had a little jealousy about about

Presenter15:34

You you formed a civil partnership in 2005. How significant was that? How important was that to be able to do that?

John Copley15:41

Um well, it was very important from a tax point of view.

John Copley15:45

What about from a lab point of view? Well, it was very, very nice. Yes, and we had a wonderful day and everybody came. All our friends, our dear, dear friends, some of whom are singing today, came and and supported us. And I think people were very glad. And I just think that we do have a bond. We're sort of linked and it does make a difference. Of course it makes a difference.

Presenter16:05

Let's have some music. Tell me what's next.

John Copley16:07

Oh, I think it's Dame Janet Baker singing from Ariodante.

John Copley16:11

Janet and I have a very, very special relationship. We are like brother and sister.

John Copley16:17

And I choreographed the very first big show she did in London with Joan Cross. And we've just become very, very close friends. I admire her. I can't tell you how much I admire her. And this aria from Ariodanti, I want it on the desert island because it's about coming out of a terrible, terrible time. The opera is about treachery, it's about dreadful things happening. And then it all resolves itself. And it's very much for me like my life. I mean, working in opera, it's a very difficult world and there's a lot of EMS, envy, malice, and spite in it. And a lot of treachery. I mean, over fifty years, I can't tell you some of the treachery that goes on. And you have to put up with it. And this aria would make me think, you know, perhaps I'm going to be rescued from this island. Perhaps my a boat is going to come in.

Speaker 417:18

At my soul and the music, I'm not sure.

Speaker 417:22

Smelling children.

Speaker 417:30

Oh is all the same.

Speaker 417:33

Yeah.

Speaker 417:57

I'm not sure.

Speaker 418:00

Hey, it's over.

Presenter18:11

Janet Baker singing Doponotte after a dark night from Handel's Ariodante. You said there, John Copley, that opera is a world full of treachery.

Presenter18:21

Tell me the most unpleasant tale you can.

John Copley18:24

Well, I can't I can't tell you I can't tell you

Presenter18:29

Well, you can leave the names out, but give uh, for those of us who whose only experience of opera is sitting in the seats watching it, we we're not necessarily aware of what's happening.

John Copley18:36

Well then I just I'm I'm I do you know I've gone totally blank. I had a terrible conductor in a small scale opera I did in America and he just couldn't do it and I went to the management and said, you know, he can't do it and they said, oh, we know that, but he's going to do it because he paid for the whole thing. You know, John, he paid for you too. So he was just stuck. And the mezzo soprano, who was so smart, she put a tap like a tap shoe. She wore a tap shoe and she tapped her way through the aria so that the orchestra could hear this metronome tapping away. And by the time we did the first night, everybody had tap shoes. And it was like they tap danced their way through Adam. A West End show. And it was.

Presenter19:13

They're way through.

John Copley19:16

But um were weren't you tempted to walk?

John Copley19:19

Um no, because the singers were so marvellous and we'd all worked so hard and we had to find a way of getting the show on. Uh

Presenter19:25

You have called yourself a dinosaur of the opera world. And I'm wondering if that isn't dangerous talk. I mean, opera, like everything else, is susceptible to fashions and people say that it's a very good idea.

John Copley19:29

Yeah.

John Copley19:35

Oh, absolutely. Oh, I'm so unfashionable now. Are you? Yes. Oh, absolutely.

John Copley19:41

Oh yes, I've done my thing. I mean, Bo Em goes on relentlessly, which is lovely. It's in its thirty fifth year this year. But no, I don't um I think, you know, there are all these wonderful young people there are lots and lots of young people they've got to have their chance.

Presenter19:55

As you said, Love O M has been running for thirty five years. There are plenty of others, so Julius Caesar, the marriage of Figaro, Cosi Fantuti, all of these staged countless times over the years in so many continents. Is is that the work that you're proudest of, the work that endures, the production that can be taken from the market?

John Copley20:05

And so

John Copley20:07

Yeah.

John Copley20:10

Yes, I think it's a good idea.

Presenter20:22

What's about managing the egos of? I'm not so much thinking of the singers now, I'm thinking of the conductors, of the maestros. How do they?

John Copley20:27

They are well they are they are an an another thing altogether. But you see I've been spoiled. And then when I started directing I had Schulte and then I had wonderful Sir Colin Davies and Sir Charles Macaris. I mean for God's sake I've done most of my stuff with those men who are superlative. I mean you can't do better than that.

John Copley20:48

You mentioned

Presenter20:48

Yeah. He came to dinner, didn't he, on one occasion?

John Copley20:52

Well, when Sir David Webster said I should direct Cousifantute, Schulte thought I was not ready for it. He didn't want me to do it. How old were you? Oh, I would have been oh, twenty eight or twenty nine. I mean, he wanted to work with Visconti and Sir Peter Hall. I mean, Schulte wanted star names, you know, to m match him.

Presenter21:06

Right.

John Copley21:11

Anyway, it was agreed that he would come to my house and have dinner, and he gave me a list of what he could eat, what he couldn't eat, which is much more. We had Sol Veronique, I remember very well. And then he looked at the model and the costume designs, and he was absolutely enchanted. He did think it looked exactly the way he wanted it to look. And then we went downstairs for some coffee, and we were in the room with two pianos. And he said, Oh, let us blow, John, you have the Mozart, let us play this. And I thought we've had a good dinner. He's loved the model. It's going to be catastrophe if I play this Mozart with him. And I sort of said, Oh, well, we'll do the middle movement of my stroke, and you can have the upright piano, and I'll play on the grand.

Presenter21:34

And oh, yeah.

Presenter21:52

And that's the slow movement of the

John Copley21:54

So that's a slow movement. And I knew I could do that. I knew I was safe with that.

Presenter21:54

Slow movement.

John Copley21:57

And it did go very well. And at the end of that he just started turning the pages from the beginning. He said, Now we go from the beginning you do it properly. And I really thought

John Copley22:08

Sugar. Terrifying. That was terrifying. And I did have somebody looking after me that night. Whoever it is up there.

John Copley22:15

Just put his hand on my shoulder and I did play it and I didn't make a mistake and um I've never been able to play it since without a mistake here or there. And it was fine and he came over and he gave me a hug and he said, If you can do that, then we don't have problems with Cosifantute and we didn't. And he became like a like a dad to me. He became a musical dad. Oh, oh, I just loved him to death.

Presenter23:37

The final movement of Mozart's sonata in D major, played there by Marta Egerich and Alexander Rabinovich. And that wasn't the slow one, that was definitely the fast one, but you managed to pull it off with Schulte there. Um tell me about the moment that well, it was really Nanette de Valois who defined your career in opera, because you did want to be a ballerina.

Presenter23:56

Well, a ballet dancer. Yes, sorry.

Presenter23:59

All this talk of pansies rather than

John Copley23:59

All this talk of pansies rather than

Presenter24:02

Rather stone me.

John Copley24:03

I probably don't want to be a ballerina.

Presenter24:03

A ballet dancer. I apologise.

John Copley24:07

Yes, and I went to the Royal Ballet School and I didn't do terribly well, and I gave lectures to the other students on opera because we were in lots of operas and nobody really explained what we were doing. And she sent for me one day and she said, You see, Copley, I have to tell you, she said, this marvellous, marvellous voice that everybody imitates, I've got to tell you absolutely

John Copley24:28

Hooped.

John Copley24:29

I thought I'd die.

Presenter24:29

Yeah.

John Copley24:32

And you're hopeless, and I'm having you transferred to the opera, she said. You'll do better there, she said. And of course she was quite right. And I started as a student and I went to the Central School of Arts and Crafts for one or two sessions a day, and the other sessions were at Covent Garden, watching people direct, watching lighting rehearsals, watching everything that was connected, orchestra rehearsals, and I just, as I said, caught it like the measles and

John Copley25:00

I couldn't have been happier. And I'd been in lots of the operas. I mean, I was the Prince of Persia in Turandotte, I was the boy in Peter Grimes, I was in lots and lots of operas. And when I went to Saddle's Wells, I was only twenty one as a stage manager. I actually knew how to do it, because I had watched everybody doing it.

Presenter25:18

And when you were part of all of that, I mean it was the forties and fifties. This w I mean, for Britain these were the austerity years, and yet you seemed to be living a life that was full of of colour and verve and vigour and ambition.

John Copley25:29

I only had three pounds a week. Right. I was terribly poor. I sort of had baked beans on toast once a day, and I had to decide whether it was lunch or supper. But I never seemed to that never seemed to worry me.

John Copley25:44

I do remember being poor and not having enough to eat. I mean, I never want to be poor again.

Presenter25:49

Let's have some more music now. Tell me what's next.

John Copley25:51

I think it's Tom Allen, Sir Thomas Allen, no less. He was the first chounin in my boème, The First One, and he was immediately struck me as a wonderful performer and actor and somebody I liked enormously. He was just the most lovely, lovely man. And we've been great friends, and we've done a huge amount of work. And I just thought this was an unusual piece to take with me. It's not opera. It's a song, an English song set by Benjamin Britton. I just have a little bit of Benjamin Britton on the island because I had a terrific time with Benjamin Britton at Arlborough and I did lots and lots of his operas. Again, he taught me a huge amount. I mean, Michael Tippett and Benjamin Britton I spent lots of time with. Can you imagine?

Speaker 426:35

Am by us and eternal my love and thy death.

Speaker 426:49

We must first

Speaker 426:54

Bathens with

Speaker 426:58

Cool snow white f

Speaker 427:07

The life feels you as the leaves grow.

Speaker 427:19

But I being a young man.

Presenter27:33

Thomas Allen singing Down by the Sally Garden was music composed by Benjamin Britton. Let's talk for a moment then, John Copley, about Alborough. You as good as saved a production of Midsummer Night's Dream there. Can you talk about that?

John Copley27:45

Well I was I was there when the Midsummer Night Stream was being done for the first time and the director was not well and he hadn't had time to prepare it very well. So I would do quite a lot of rehearsing behind the scenes and um I do feel a little bit a part of it because I was able to talk to Ben, you know, to find out what he wanted.

Presenter28:04

The public loves what you do, uh evidenced by the duration of of so many of your productions. What the public wants and what the critics appreciate, there are often um very different things. Do do you read reviews of your work?

John Copley28:17

Yeah, I and I I have them vetted. Who vets them? My partner.

John Copley28:22

Jesus says don't read Diet.

John Copley28:25

Are you not then very tempted to to read it behind his back? Um I read them i if they're nice and if they're nasty I read them later. And if you get a a set of really bad reviews, it does affect you and it affects your psyche.

Presenter28:34

Uh

Presenter28:38

You're very um well, obviously you have huge diplomatic skills, but you are quite a straightforward person. Did you ever harangue the critics later on?

John Copley28:45

Oh, yes. Oh, absolutely. Yes, I do. Doesn't help.

John Copley28:51

It doesn't get you any better reviews.

Presenter28:52

We mentioned the travel, but let's just

Presenter28:55

talk about it a little bit more.

Presenter28:57

Gothenburg, San Francisco, Dallas, Sydney, New York all over the world. For a lot of people that would be a punishing schedule. Do you actually are you one of those rare creatures who can actually enjoy the travel?

John Copley29:08

Well, I enjoy it now I travel first class.

John Copley29:13

But I mean I did go to Australia. I did twenty six productions in the Sydney Opera House. So I mean I was going to Australia sometimes four times a year on Qantas, first class, with all that um fantastic food and wine. I mean that was glorious. You know, you'd arrive in Sydney at six o'clock in the morning completely drunk, you know.

Presenter29:33

Yes, I was going to say, I mean, there was a time when the in-flight hospitality sort of seeped out beyond the plane.

John Copley29:38

Well, you could have um Grand Cru wines. I mean, you didn't have just a glass or something. You could have three bottles on the flight, as long as you behaved. And we tended to behave pretty well. But you gave up the boot.

Presenter29:50

Yeah.

John Copley29:51

Yeah.

Presenter29:51

Did you not? I think in flight and out.

John Copley29:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah. In flight and out. Yes, I did. Yes, I gave it up in nineteen eighty. I went to AA and I haven't drunk since and I'm much better without it. It didn't suit me, and I was upsetting people. Some people I upset have not forgiven me.

John Copley30:05

I really behaved very b badly and they haven't forgiven me.

Presenter30:09

Right. People who go to AA are are encouraged, I understand, to go back and to say to people, I would like to discuss what happened in command if we try to do that.

John Copley30:15

Oh yes, oh yes, I've done all that, but it didn't really help. I think I must have been really out of control.

Presenter30:22

Do you remember the worst excesses of it, or is it something of a blur?

John Copley30:25

Yeah, yeah, I do remember yes, I do remember throwing the phone across the room.

John Copley30:30

in an absolute rage and thinking, I think I'm drunk and I need help and I picked up the phone and I thought, Oh, well it'll won't work'cause it'll be broken and in fact it wasn't. And I got somebody from AA and they came round in about an hour.

John Copley30:45

I went to a meeting the next day and that was it.

John Copley30:48

Goodness me that was october the first, nineteen eighty. That was good for me.

Presenter30:52

Um addiction often will have a an enormous impact on the on those closest to you. It's interesting that your relationship with John sustained that period.

John Copley31:00

I don't know how he put up with me, but he did.

Presenter31:04

Yeah.

John Copley31:04

He's very pleased that I don't drink any more, I think.

Presenter31:06

Yeah.

Presenter31:08

Let's have some music, what's next?

John Copley31:10

Well, this spiritual song by Leon Tim Price is the most glorious singing, it's the most glorious voice. It's a very simple text. He's got the whole world in his hands. We were talking earlier about when I was playing that duet with Schulte, I definitely felt that somebody was actually looking after me. And

John Copley31:28

I think somebody's looked after me. And I worked with Layantine Price once at Covent Garden, and she was quite extraordinary and special, and this voice just pouring out. It was the most beautiful sound you could imagine.

Speaker 431:42

He's got the whole world in his hand, he's got the whole world in his hand, he's got the whole world in his hand, he's got the whole world in his hand.

Presenter32:08

That was Leontine Price, and he's got the whole world in his hands. You are I'm sorry to bring up age, John Copley, but you're seventy six now. Yes, I'm seventy six. You talked about the idea that there is this greater power who at times has been good enough to look over you and make sure that things go right. When they are

John Copley32:14

But you're seventy-six now.

Presenter32:25

Apparently teetering on the edge of complete chaos and disaster in productions. When you're seventy-six, might you not have less of an appetite to teeter on the edge of disaster?

John Copley32:34

Oh absolutely. And also it's a very tough business. The travelling does take its toll.

Presenter32:41

I read once that you said I th I thought this was um well actually a very moving thing to say. You said I'm terribly lucky and in both loving and being loved for the longest possible time. It helps me to get at things immediately, because most operas are about love.

John Copley32:56

No, well they are. And I mean the one thing that I know that I am good at, and this is why I teach a lot, I can show them and help them to do love on stage. I know technically how to do that. But I mean I've had the most blessed life anybody could ever imagine. I mean I've I've had a blessed life. I've done what I wanted to do and somehow people along the way thought I'd got something if it was only enthusiasm I suppose and that plus a fantastic partner who I've had for fifty years in my life I don't think I could have been happier.

Presenter33:34

Yeah.

John Copley33:34

Tell me about your final piece of music then. Are we going to hear for disc? Uh It's going to be Victoria de Los Angeles singing um a song by Mompea.

John Copley33:44

I mean, I saw her so many times in operas and on the concert platform. I was lucky enough to direct her in New York.

John Copley33:51

in my figaro at the New York City Opera, and she came in to do a few performances, and she worked so hard for three weeks, and we adored her. She was full of sunshine and full just the loveliest woman you could imagine. She was very like Janet. She brought sunshine into the room.

John Copley34:08

And after three weeks um she found that she couldn't really manage the Dovesono aria, it was just slightly beyond her. And she came and um she did have tears in her eyes and she said, I can't do it. I'm not good enough I can't offer my public at this point something that is not good enough, so I have to say goodbye and we all absolutely cried in the room, we were all absolutely choked. And that was the last time I saw her.

John Copley34:33

She was one of the loveliest people, and you just hear the sound that she makes. And it's a poem. It's a wind and a sail carried off our thoughts to a sea where tenderness is. The counterpart of music and light. Our kisses became transparent. You the water. I was the mirror. It's rather um ob obscure, but that's what the song's about.

Speaker 435:00

Uh

Speaker 435:00

What mother should

Speaker 435:04

You know for lambda songs.

Speaker 435:22

Stor navuzikai krista.

Speaker 435:31

Fascinates failure, the lungs buried

Speaker 435:41

Seat with us to line up with all the pairs.

Presenter35:50

That was Victoria de Los Angeles singing that night an identical wind from Mompeau's The Struggle in the Dream. So we've come to the point now, John, where I will give you a copy of the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you're allowed to take a book. What's your book going to be?

John Copley36:06

Um well, I'd like Grove's Dictionary of Music.

John Copley36:10

Which is actually twenty volumes, but I'm sure I can't have that. But there is one volume that's um come out uh in the last few years, which is an operatic um and it would be quite good'cause I'd be able to read about all the things everybody else has done. It's

Presenter36:24

It's yours. It's yours. And a luxury as well.

John Copley36:29

Can I have my forty nine year old double bed?

Presenter36:32

Yes. Yes. Oh well, that was that that would be better than that. That was easy.

John Copley36:33

Ellen

Presenter36:38

You may have that. And if you had to choose just one of the eight discs, which one is it going to be?

John Copley36:41

A disc

Presenter36:43

Oh yes.

John Copley36:44

Isn't that hard? It is. That's desperately hard. I think it would have to be Janet Baker.

Presenter36:49

It's yours. John Copley, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs. Thank you for having me.

Presenter37:42

You've been listening to a download from the BBC.

Presenter37:44

You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash radio four.