Opera Scotland

Albert Coates Suggest updates

Born St Petersburg, 23 April 1882.

Died Cape Town, 11 December 1953.

Anglo-Russian conductor and composer.

 

Albert Coates grew up in St Petersburg and was a noted interpreter of Russian music and Wagner. In Britain he worked with BNOC and Covent Garden, as well as with the London Symphony Orchestra.

He spent most of the Edwardian period in Germany, studying in Leipzig under Nikisch before going to Elberfeld, Dresden and Mannheim as conductor. In 1909 he returned to St Petersburg and was artistic director of the St Petersburg Opera until the Revolution. He continued to work in Russia occasionally thereafter.

In Britain, he first worked at Covent Garden in 1914, returning from 1919-24 and 1935-8. He conducted performances of Boris Godunov with Shalyapin and also the BNOC Ring. In 1936 he collaborated with the tenor Vladimir Rosing on the formation of the Coates-Rosing company,

He composed several operas, including Samuel Pepys (1929), premiered in Munich, and Pickwick, performed at Covent Garden in 1936