John Copley

Who is John Copley?

John Michael Harold Copley, CBE is a British theatre and opera producer.

He was born in Birmingham, West Midlands, son of Ernest Harold Copley and Lilian Forbes, and attended King Edward VI Five Ways. After a brief career as an actor, he became stage manager at Sadler's Wells in 1953 and resident producer for the Covent Garden Opera Company in 1972. He has produced most of the standard operatic repertoire for many opera houses and festivals in Europe, USA and Canada. He has had a long association with Opera Australia, including the Australian premiere of Leoš Janáček's Jenůfa in 1984.

The filmed operas he has been associated with are:

Semiramide

Adriana Lecouvreur

Giulio Cesare

La bohème

Lucrezia Borgia

Lucia di Lammermoor

For over 50 years Copley has been the partner of John Hugh Chadwyck-Healey, grandson of Charles Chadwyck-Healey, 1st Baronet. In 2006, they contracted a civil partnership, which Copley described when he was a guest on the BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs programme on 3 January 2010.

Copley was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to opera.