Sarah Caldwell, the leader of the Opera Company of Boston from 1958-1990, was a groundbreaking and idiosyncratic woman who established her own career as a composer and stage director in an environment resistant to change. This book investigates her choices as an opera director, her influences, her philosophies, and her methods, and situates her work within the history of opera in America.

Though she is remembered primarily as a conductor, her passion, and her greater influence on American opera, was through stage directing. With a repertoire that included ground-breaking interpretations of works such as Nono's Intolleranza 1960, Prokofiev's War and Peace, and Bernstein's Mass, Caldwell continually pushed her own artistic limits, provoked critics, intrigued audiences, and challenged the status quo of opera production. Her passion for opera, her creative use of new technology and her influence in bringing opera to all sectors of American society, culminated in 1997 when she was awarded the National Medal of Arts for her work as a pioneering woman in the American musical landscape, and a tireless and innovative arts entrepreneur.