Be sure to read the obituaries for the remarkable Boston opera impresario Sarah Caldwell — Richard Dyer's and Anthony Tommasini's are authoritative. I saw only one of Caldwell's productions, in 1988, and I don't think I caught her at her best. It was Médée, an unforgettably strange staging combining Cherubini's elegant 1797 score, declamations in ancient Greek, and Michalis Christodoulidis's harsh-toned reimaginings of ancient Greek music. Josephine Barstow gave a forceful rendition of the title role, but it was a long night. This, believe it or not, was my introduction to live opera. I also saw part of Caldwell's 1988 festival devoted to modern Soviet composers (Schnittke, Gubaidulina, Kancheli), which, as the obituarists relate, nearly caused a diplomatic incident.
