Antonio Pappano

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2004

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the conductor Antonio Pappano. He took over as music director of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden two years ago following in the footsteps of Bernard Haitink and the late Sir Georg Solti. Observers have pointed to a noticeable shift in leadership since his arrival describing him as the 'Mr Motivator' of the opera world. He's also earned a reputation for being able to attract and nurture some of the industry's most difficult stars.

He was born in 1959 in Epping, although his parents were originally from the Campania region of Italy near Naples. The family soon moved to Clapham in South London where Antonio's father worked as a singing coach at a studio in Pimlico. As a boy he studied the piano and, by the age of ten, was his father's regular accompanist. When he was 13, the family moved to Connecticut in America, where he organised school and church choirs and played the piano in a local cocktail bar. He didn't take the traditional career path into the world of opera through college and conservatoire but was sufficiently gifted to become a rehearsal pianist at the New York City Opera by the age of 21. He began to conduct, and soon came to the attention of Daniel Barenboim, who took him on as his assistant. From there he moved to the Opera House in Oslo and, by the age of 32, he was appointed musical director of the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels where he stayed until his move to the Royal Opera House two years ago.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Young and Foolish by Tony Bennett and Bill Evans Book: Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Luxury: A piano

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 2004, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a musician. His great talent is to understand and direct the human voice.
0:35.6	He was brought up in London, the son of Italian immigrants. His father taught singing while
0:40.2	his mother slaved as a cleaner and housekeeper.
0:43.0	A prodigy at the piano with a following for knocking out rock music at his school in Pimlico,
0:48.0	he became accompanist at his father's lessons.
0:50.0	The family moved to America where he earned pocket money playing in cocktail bars.
0:55.2	He went on to become an accompanist for singers in rehearsal at many leading opera houses
0:59.7	on both sides of the Atlantic, ending up as Baron Boim's assistant at Bairoit.
1:04.6	A decade as music director at the Opera House in Brussels led to a return to the city of his upbringing. Today the promising pupil from Pimlico is music director of the Royal Opera House
1:15.6	Covent Garden. He is Antonio Papano. It's a romantic story yours, Tony. Obviously musical talent is in the blood, but your tastes abroad, aren't
1:26.8	they? It's not only opera that you love.
1:28.8	I'm, I think most influenced by my mom and dad having been such hard workers that kind of Italian,
1:37.0	typical Italian working class type of person who at the drop of a hat would burst into song or something you know a
1:45.6	Neapolitan song would come and so if it's O'Solemyo or Santa Lucia you want you can do that too.
1:51.2	Yeah well yes I can actually I don't think anybody wants to hear me
1:55.0	sing it but I can do that and I it's funny that that type of spontaneity with regards to
2:00.6	music is something that I think is very important to me.
2:04.9	And I think this kind of blitz-like surprise that music can conjure in one leads me to be kind of very eclectic in my taste.
2:16.4	I don't know.
2:17.4	Are they also like vegging out in front of MTV?
	...

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