ìPARA àPAR@ ` σTEXT ` ╫Caldwell, Sarah1928?╨opera producer, director, and conductorBorn about 1928 in Maryville, Missouri, Sarah Caldwell grew up in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She was a musical prodigy and before the age of ten was giving public violin recitals. After graduating from high school at fourteen, she studied briefly at Hendrix College and at the University of Arkansas before traveling to Boston to enter the New England Conservatory of Music. On completing her studies there she passed up offers to play with orchestras in order to work as assistant to Boris Goldovsky of the New England Opera Theater. Under Goldovsky she learned stage techniques, direction, and production and also did much scholarly work on operatic scores and librettos. Her first production on her own, of Ralph Vaughan Williams╒s Riders to the Sea in 1946, attracted the notice of Serge Koussevitsky, who offered her a post at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood. For six summers she taught and assisted there while continuing to study conducting and stagecraft under Koussevitsky and Goldovsky. In 1952 she was appointed to head the opera workshop at Boston University, where she remained for five years, during which her productions included the American premiere of Hindemith╒s Mathis der Maler. In 1957 Caldwell left the university to organize the Boston Opera Group (from 1965 the Opera Company of Boston), an independent company that notwithstanding its shoestring finances soon established a remarkable reputation in staging operas. Beginning with a performance of Offenbach╒s Voyage to the Moon in June 1958, from a score that Caldwell had edited, the Opera Group mounted productions in gymnasiums, old movie theaters, or wherever accommodations could be found. Later, when contributions and grants were more readily available, the group settled in the old Orpheum Theatre, still a less than ideal setting for opera. (The company did not find a permanent home until October 1978, when it bought the elegant Savoy Theatre.) From the beginning the group was known for daring and innovation. Caldwell╒s understanding of opera as equally musical and visual experiences enabled her to mount spectacularly theatrical productions, and her scholarly bent brought to the Boston stage many new works along with the traditional operatic repertoire. Her scrupulously high standards and ingenuity more than overcame lack of resources and soon attracted performers of the highest caliber, including Joan Sutherland, Renata Tebaldi, Marilyn Home, Nicolai Gedda, and Boris Christoff. (Beverly Sills sang her first Norma and Lucia di Lammermoor under Caldwell╒s direction.) Among the Opera Group╒s productions were American premieres of Nono╒s Intolleranza, Schoenberg╒s Moses und Aron, Schuller╒s The Fisherman and His Wife, Bartok╒s The Miraculous Mandarin, Mussorgsky╒s Boris Godunov in the composer╒s own orchestration, the full version of Berlioz╒s Les Troyens, the five-act French edition of Verdi╒s Don Carlos, Glinka╒s Russian and Ludmilla, and Michael Tippett╒s The Ice Break, along with an amazing production of the rarely attempted War and Peace by Prokofiev and stagings of lesser-known works such as Kurka╒s The Good Soldier Schweik, Smetana╒s The Bartered Bride, and Berg╒s Lulu. In 1967╨1968 Caldwell also directed the short-lived American National Opera Company. Her production skills sometimes overshadowed her ability as a conductor, but gradually she became recognized in that field as well. She conducted the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in November 1975 and in January 1976 became the first woman to conduct at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, leading a production of La Traviata with Beverly Sills. In April 1977 she produced Ariadne auf Naxos with the New York City Opera. She made great efforts to use opera to help countries communicate. In 1982 she drew up an agreement between the Opera Company of Boston and Imelda Marcos, First Lady of the Philippines, to advise and assist in the creation of an opera company in the Philippines. Later, she organized Making Music Together, an American-Soviet performing arts venture, which brought 285 Soviet performers to Boston in 1988 for collaborative musical concerts, ballet and opera performances with their American counterparts. In 1991 the second leg of the venture took place with American performers traveling to the Soviet Union for four months of performances.Acknowledged one of the great operatic producers in the world, she has often been referred to as the ╥first lady of American opera.╙ nstyl ` 8 ! ¬ 5¬ 5¬ @ !I ! !I 2 !I δ !I √ !I 5¬ !I !I 0 !I ▀ 5¬ α !I
