Albert Coates (musician) - Later Years

Later Years

In 1925, Coates was invited to Paris to conduct at the Opéra. He continued to make regular guest appearances in many of the world's artistic centers until 1939. He conducted opera in Italy (1927 to 1929) and Germany (Berlin State Opera, 1931), and concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (1935) and in the Netherlands, Sweden and the USSR, which he visited three times.

On 13 November 1936, the BBC broadcast the world's first televised opera: scenes from Coates's Pickwick, directed by Rosing, were shown in advance of the work's premiere. Coates and Rosing launched a season of the British Music Drama Opera Company at Covent Garden the following week.

When World War II broke out, Coates moved to the U.S. There, together with Rosing, he founded the Southern California Opera Association. Productions included Coates's opera Gainsborough's Duchess. He guest conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic and worked briefly in Hollywood, making cameo appearances in two MGM films.

In 1946, he moved to South Africa, accepting the conductorships of the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra and, later, the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra. He settled in Milnerton, Cape Town, with his second wife Vera Joanna Nettlefold (a soprano professionally known as Vera de Villiers), and died there in 1953. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says of him "Although he was important to the fortunes of the London Symphony Orchestra immediately after the First World War, his contribution to British musical life was ephemeral. As a composer he has lost his place in the repertory, and as an executant he is remembered generally by collectors with an interest in historic recordings."