Dayton Daily News from Dayton, Ohio • 28

6-C Sun, June 21, 1987 on Dally News and Journal Herald Leoncavallo's 'Zaza' opens Cincinnati Opera '87 season for his Pagliacci, wrote a string of arias for the opera. Conductor Coppola once compared the role of Zaza to singing four Neddas (in Pagliacci). And, as for the male singers, there's one aria for baritone that may ring a bell. It's My Little Gypsy, which John Charles Thomas made famous when he recorded it for an RCA album. Coppola, who grew up in New York and served as a bandmaster in the U.S.

Air Force, was for many years on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music. Soprano Craig, who was born on Long Island, planned to teach music. A graduate of Ithaca College, she made her debut at the Skylight Theatre in Milwaukee. Repeating the tenor lead he sang in Cincinnati in 1985 will be Iceland-native Kristian Johannsson who made his own American debut in 1984 when he sang with OperaColumbus. Johannsson took most of his studies in Italy where he has also appeared with many companies and made recordings.

The Cincinnati version of Zaza was the result of some "tinkering" by Coppola and director James de Blasis. Coppola pointed out at the time that Leoncavallo himself had made many changes after his 1900 premiere in Milan and after a still later production. Leoncavallo, who remains best known as a one-opera composer (Pagliacci, which was premiered in 1892), completed his first opera Chatterton, in 1876. He planned a triology on a Renaissance Italy theme but never got beyond the first one, Medici. The Naples-born composer also wrote his own La Boheme, but Puccini got there first.

Puccini's Boheme was written 15 months earlier. Leoncavallo also wrote a series of operettas that, as the saying goes, failed to win an audience. His last day at 8 p.m. A repeat performance of Zaza is scheduled for Saturday. Earlier this year the company, which is the second oldest opera in the United States, second only to the Metropolitan Opera, announced it was trimming its sails to include only summer performances.

The last of the spring and fall performances, which were initiated several years ago, will be a November production of Turandot. That will feature soprano Martina Arroyo as the icy Princesss Turandot. American soprano Patricia Cnig, who is a principal artist of the Metropolitan and a featured soloist with opera companies throughout the country, will be featured in this week's Zaza. The opera, which has all but faded into the woodwork except for periodic performances in Italy, alternates between moments of passion and intensity and stretches of comedy. Leoncavallo, who is known throughout the opera world opera, EdipoRe, was premiered in Chicago in 1920, the same year Geraldine Farrar sang Zaza at the Metropolitan Opera.

The Cincinnati summer series will continue with Puccini's Madama Butterfly July 2 and 5. Soprano Barbara Daniels, who was trained at the College-Conservatory of Music before launching a career in Europe, will return to sing the role of Butterfly. Making his Cincinnati opera debut as Pin kerton will be tenor Michael Sylvester. Coppola will conduct and De Blasis is stage directr. Performances of the Butterfly begin at 8 p.m.

Thursday, July and at 7 p.m. Sunday, July 5. Third opera of the summer series will be Rossini's Barber of Seville. Metropolitan Opera soprano Ruth Welting and Met baritone Brian Schex-nayder will head the cast. Performances are scheduled for July 9 and 1 1 By Betty Dietz Krebs AS EDITOR case you're still wondering, conductor Anton Coppola and his famous nephew, film director Francis Ford Coppola, still haven't been able to get together on a project they both think is pretty terrific.

They have talked about collaborating on an opera production. They even krJow which opera: Puccini's Turandot. At least, that's what Coppola told mwhen he was here to conduct Day-tojjppera. Now, though, Coppola's involved in a production of Ruggiero Leoncavallo's opera, Zaza, which is all but unknown in the United States. Coppola will conduct the Leoncavallo opera for the opening performances of Cincinnati Opera's 1987 season.

This is the production Cincinnati Opera presented in 1925, America's revival of the opera Anton Coppola which had last been seen in the United States at the Metropolitan in 1920. The Cincinnati company begins the three-opera series at Music Hall Thurs June Carter Cash: strong woman behind the man called Johnny ers Emmylou Harris and Rita Coolidge about appearing in it. The Wildwood Flower also is the name of a forthcoming album by Mrs. Cash, her daughter, Carlene, and her sisters, Helen and Anita. Her husband also does some singing on it.

sanne Cash, says she didn't sacrifice her own career to marry. "Maybe I could have been a bigger star, but I wouldn't have been as happy. I wanted him to be Moses and I'll lift up his arms if I can. I'm liberated. He lets me do what I want.

With all of her projects, Mrs. Cash keeps her life focused on her family. "I think Johnny and I are happier than ever before. We've had wonderful years together and some pain. We've prayed a lot and God helDed us a lot." Mrs.

Cash, stepmother of singer Ro- "I shared so many things I never meant to tell," she says. With this project out of the way, she is moving ahead with a movie she's just finished writing, The Wildwood Flower. Taken from the name of a famous Carter Family song, the film is set in 1932 and is about surviving the Depression. She's already contacted Academy Award winner Robert Duvall and sing pendent person than to be that person. The whole family gets affected.

But I feel great about Johnny and I and all the kids." They were married in 1968 after he proposed on stage during a concert before 5,000 people in London, Ontario. The 57-year-old singer-songwriter has just written a book, From the Heart. The collection of 44 brief recollections about her many adventures is published by Prentice Hall Press. DAD GR AD BELLFAII By Joe Edwards ASSOCIATED PRESS NASHVILLE, Tenn. It was seconds before the 1976 Country Music Association awards show.

Entertainer Jonny Cash, the show's host, stood nervously in the wings of the Grand Ole Opry House, where the live program was to be broadcast to millions. His wife, June, kissed him lightly, straightened his tie and calmly whispered: "You'll do fine." It's been that way for 20 years: June Carter Cash, a descendant of one of the most famous families in country music, and a performer herself, was born to a legend and has helped maintain one. "I've been a good helpmate," she says. "I chose to do that." In 1967, before she was married to Cash, she stayed with him in his lakeside home and helped him with his pill addiction. "We have survived it," she says.

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