Sarah Caldwell

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For the American author, see Sara Caldwell.

Sarah Caldwell (March 6, 1924 – March 23, 2006) was a notable American opera conductor, impresario, and opera company director. She also directed one non-musical production, the 1981 Lincoln Center staging of Shakespeare's Macbeth, presented on cable TV in 1982. It starred Philip Anglim and Maureen Anderman, with a then-unknown Kelsey Grammer in the supporting role of Ross, the soldier who informs Macbeth that he has been made Thane of Cawdor.

Caldwell was born in Maryville, Missouri, and grew up in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She was a child prodigy and was giving public performances on the violin by the time she was 10 years old. She graduated from Fayetteville High School at the age of fourteen.

Caldwell graduated from Hendrix College in 1944 and attended the University of Arkansas as well as the New England Conservatory of Music. She won a scholarship as a viola player at Berkshire Music Center in 1946. In 1947, she staged Vaughan Williams' Riders to the Sea. For eleven (11) years she served as the chief assistant to Boris Goldovsky.

Caldwell moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1952 and became head of the Boston University opera workshop. In 1957 she started the Opera Company of Boston where she staged a large mix of operas, establishing a reputation for producing difficult works under pressure. She was also known for putting together interesting variations of standard operas.

In 1976, Caldwell became the first female conductor of the Metropolitan Opera. She appeared with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

In 1975 Caldwell received a D.F.A. from Bates College. In 1996 she received the National Medal of Arts. She has been inducted into the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame.

She died, aged 82, at Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine, from heart failure.

Contents

[edit] Studio Discography

  • Donizetti: Don Pasquale (Sills, Kraus, Titus, Gramm; Caldwell, 1978) EMI

[edit] Videography

  • Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia (Sills, H.Price, Titus, Gramm, Ramey; Caldwell, Caldwell, 1976) [live]

[edit] Quotes

  • 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.
  • If you can sell green toothpaste in this country, you can sell opera.

Adapted from the article ([1]) Sarah Caldwell, from Wikinfo, licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

[edit] External links