Emil Cooper

Emil Cooper (drawn by Fyodor Chalyapin 1916)

Emil Cooper ( Alexander Golowin , 1919)

Emil Kuper exhilarated or Cooper ( Russian Эмиль Альбертович Купер ; born December 8 ^{. Jul} / 20th December  1877 ^{. Greg} in Kherson ; †  19th November 1960 in New York ) was a Ukrainian - Russian - American violinist and conductor of English descent .

Life

Cooper, son of the Odessa music teacher and double bass player Albert Stock, learned to play the violin from his father when he was five. He then studied violin at the Odessa Music School, graduating in 1891. He then went to the Vienna Conservatory to study with Josef Hellmesberger senior . He studied composition with Robert Fuchs (until 1893) and then with Sergei Taneyev in Moscow . 1891-1896 he became a prodigy - Geiger in Konstantin Opel , Vienna and the cities of Eastern Europe on. He performed until 1898.

The conducting studied Cooper independently and later took lessons from Arthur Nikisch in Leipzig . Cooper first appeared as a conductor in 1896. In 1899 he traveled through Russian cities as an opera conductor with Leonid Sobinow and Fyodor Chalyapin . 1900–1904 he worked at the Kiev Opera and then in Moscow on the private Simin Opera , where in 1909 Rimsky-Korsakov's Golden Rooster was performed under Cooper's direction . Sergei Djagilew invited Cooper to conduct the Ballets Russes , so that Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov with Chaliapin in the leading role was performed in Paris in 1909 under Cooper's direction . In 1910 Cooper came to the Imperial Opera in Moscow. Cooper conducted not only operas but symphonies as well . He premiered works by contemporary composers such as Nikolai Medtner , Nikolai Mjaskowski , Sergei Rachmaninow , Alexander Scriabin and Reinhold Glière (Symphony Ilja Muromez 1912). In January 1917 he conducted Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov 's Kaschtschei bessmertny (Kashchei the Immortal ) in the Moscow Bolshoi Theater .

After the October Revolution , Cooper conducted at the invitation of Alexander Glasunov in the converted Petrograd State Opera and Ballet Theater and the orchestra of the Petrograd Philharmonic . In 1922 he left the Soviet Union and settled in Paris . He conducted a lot and was then artistic director of the Russian Opera. 1925–1928 he was director of the Latvian National Opera in Riga . In 1929 he conducted at the Lyric Opera of Chicago . From 1932 he performed again in Europe. In 1939 he returned to the USA . After the Second World War he was one of the conductors of the New York Metropolitan Opera (until 1950). He headed the American premiere of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes and the new production of Khovanshchina Mussorgsky. From 1944 until his death he headed in Montreal Pauline Donaldas Opera Guild of Montreal . His broad repertoire also included the operas Sergei Prokofiev and Gian Carlo Menotti, which were previously unknown in Canada .

Cooper's estate is in the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec .

literature

• Michael Goldstein:  Cooper, Emil. In: MGG Online (subscription required).

Web links

Commons : Emil Cooper  - Collection of Images

• Literature by and about Emil Cooper in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Information on Emil Cooper in the database of the Bibliothèque nationale de France , accessed on July 20, 2017.
2. ↑ Еврейская энциклопедия Брокгауза и Ефрона : Купер, Эмиль Альбертович.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Исторический словарь: Купер (accessed July 17, 2017).
4. ^ Goodwin, Noël: Cooper, Emil Albertovich . Montagu-Nathan, Madrid 1992.
5. ^ Stanley Sadie: The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Vol.1 . MacMillan, London, ISBN 0-333-73432-7 , pp. 940 .
6. ^ Brotman, Ruth C .: Pauline Donalda: The Life and Career of a Canadian Prima Donna . The Eagle Publishing Company Ltd., Montreal 1975, p. 96 .