Anton Coppola to Opera Tampa and the music world at large, and specifically for extraordinary work in the cultivation and care of the operatic art form. Coppola himself was recipient of the award in 2012, the year of his retirement. Anton Coppola Antonio Francesco Coppola (born March 21, 1917) is an American opera conductor and composer. He is the uncle of film director Francis Ford Coppola and actress Talia Shire, as well as the grand-uncle of Nicolas Cage, Sofia Coppola, Gian-Carlo Coppola, Jason Schwartzman and Robert Schwartzman, and is the younger brother of American composer and musician Carmine Coppola. Coppola started his
Francis Ford Coppola the latter's first film, "THX 1138". Shortly after completion of production they brought the finished film to Warner Bros., along with several other scripts for potential projects at their newly founded company, American Zoetrope. However, studio executives strongly disliked all the scripts, including "THX" and demanded that Coppola repay the $300,000 they had loaned him for the Zoetrope studio, as well as insisting on cutting five minutes from the film. The debt nearly closed Zoetrope and forced Coppola to reluctantly focus on "The Godfather". His company American Zoetrope also administers the Zoetrope Virtual Studio, a complete motion picture production studio