A powerful pioneer in opera and music recounts her struggles and triumphs.Founder and long-time director of the Opera Company of Boston and the first woman to conduct the Metropolitan Opera, Sarah Caldwell was one of America's best known and most adventurous conductors and opera directors. Her career spanned her wildly successful and innovative productions of classical operas, such as Offenbach's "Voyage to the Moon", "Don Quixote", and "Madama Butterfly" to projects like "Making Music Together," which in 1988 brought together musicians and composers from the Soviet Union and the United States. Caldwell's work earned her many honorary degrees and she received the National Medal for the Arts from President Clinton in 1997. "Challenges" is based on a series of interviews Rebecca Matlock conducted over a period of three years before Caldwell's death in 2006. This intimate memoir gives us Caldwell's perceptions in her own unique, indomitable voice.

About the Author

REBECCA MATLOCK is an author, photographer, and wife of the former U.S.Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Jack Matlock. She served on the board of the Opera Company of Boston and now lives in Princeton, New Jersey, and Booneville, Tennessee.

Reviews

"I consider Sarah Caldwell's reminiscences an exceptionally important piece of writing on the subject of operatic staging and directing. It demonstrates what a conscientious, imaginative, creative and competent musical and directorial practitioner can accomplish without relying on shock values and bad taste." - Andrew Farkas, editor of Opera Biography "A fascinating revelation of her life and endeavours by an incredible character, Sarah Caldwell." - Dame Joan Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE, author of A Prima Donna's Progress "Challenges illuminates the depth of Sarah Caldwell's lifelong profound and passionate dedication to opera performance. Her intellect, musical skills, and endless curiosity made her productions uniquely alive and stimulating to the opera world and to all who worked with her." - Phyllis Curtin, retired singer, Metropolitan Opera"