MR TWO JOBS

When the glossy-maned Antonio Pappano takes his bow at Covent Garden—or after a concert by the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome—you’d say this was a man at ease with his own celebrity. As music director of both, he wields as much power as any conductor in the world; if he had more time for the piano, he’d make a glittering career with that too. His nine years at Covent Garden have been an almost unalloyed success, and he has single-handedly rescued the venerable Accademia from oblivion. Yet his story is one of immigrant rags-to-riches.

Born in Epping, Essex, 51 years ago, and brought up in a dingy council flat, Pappano saw his father Pasquale teach singing and his mother Carmela Maria go out to clean. His first dream was to be a footballer, but at six he began practising the piano before school. When he was 13 the family moved to Connecticut, where he coached singers with his father and played in cocktail bars. His career proper began with New York City Opera, and blossomed—thanks to blazing talent, plus ferociously hard work—with music-directorships in Oslo and Brussels.

In a notoriously back-biting field, Pappano seems to have no enemies. Musicians love working with him: the only grumbles come from the brilliant British singers he sometimes passes over in favour of less talented Russians and Italians. This season, he conducts five new productions, starting with a Puccini triple bill, “Il trittico”, which was last seen in full at Covent Garden in 1965.

~ MICHAEL CHURCH

"Il trittico" opens at the Royal Opera House, London on September 12th