Sarah Caldwell
'If you approach an opera as though it were something that always went a certain way, that's what you get. I approach an opera as though I didn't know it.' - Sarah Caldwell
American conductor, director, producer and manager Sarah Caldwell was born on 6 March 1924 in Maryville, MO. She studied opera production, stage design, conducting, violin and viola at the New England Conservatory of Music in the mid 1940s, won a fellowship to Tanglewood in 1946 then taught at the Berkshire Music Center from 1948-52. She ran the Opera Workshop Department at Boston University from 1952-60, founding what later became The Opera Company of Boston in 1958. In 1976 she became the first woman to conduct at the New York Metropolitan Opera, and in 1983 became artistic director of the New Opera Company of Israel.
Known for her emphasis on the dramatic, her spectacular visual stagings and her catholic tastes, she produced complete versions of rarely performed works, including the American premières of operas by Schoenberg (Moses and Aron), Nono (Intolleranza), Berg (Lulu), Sessions (Montezuma), Berlioz (The Trojans) and Prokofiev (War and Peace).
Sarah Caldwell died on 23 March 2006 in Portland ME, aged eighty-two.
A selection of articles about Sarah Caldwell
Ensemble. Teatro dell'Opera di Roma Re-opens - Giuseppe Pennisi was in a box for the opening night
Ensemble. A Difficult Cocktail - Rossini's 'Moïse et Pharaon', assessed by Giuseppe Pennisi