Sarah Caldwell
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Sarah Caldwell, (born 6 March 1924), is a notable American opera conductor and opera company director.
Caldwell was born in Maryville, Missouri and grew up at Fayetteville, Arkansas. She was a child prodigy and was giving public performances on the violin by the time she was 10 years old. Caldwell graduated from high school at the age of 14.
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 11 years she served as the chief assistant of Boris Goldovsky.
Caldwell then 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 is also known for putting together interesting variations of standard operas.
In 1976, Caldwell became the first female conductor of the Metropolitan Opera. She has appeared with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Caldwell currently is a Distinguished Professor of the music faculty at the University of Arkansas. In 1996 she received the National Medal of Arts. She has been inducted into the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame.
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 Sarah Caldwell (http://www.wikinfo.org/wiki.phtml?title=Sarah_Caldwell), from Wikinfo, licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.