Monday, March 28, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Filly Victoria Pool wins at Aqueduct Racetrack on 3/17/11.
SECOND RACE: Victoria Pool, 8-1 dropping in for 50G maiden claiming tag after losing her debut vs. NY-bred special weights by 14 lengths at 50-1, gunned to the front under Eurico Da Silva, chased by 30-1 first-time starter Maspeth Princess, Jose Espinoza up, with Dita, third vs. special weights last out, tracking the pace under a snug hold by Channing Hill. Dita made her move turning for home but hung, while Maspeth Princess turned in a strong bid but was repulsed by Victoria Pool in a long stretch duel. Bazinga, even-money favorite in her debut for Linda Rice, never got involved.
This filly is named after our favorite pool.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
More cuts for NYS Parks
Officials: Less money, but no ax for state parks (with video)
Published: Wednesday, March 09, 2011
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By PAUL POST
The Saratogian
SARATOGA SPRINGS — State parks will have even less money for much-needed repairs this year, but at least there’s no danger of sites closing, officials said Wednesday.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposed budget calls for a 10 percent — $17.7 million — reduction in parks spending, coming on the heels of a similar-sized cut last year.
Only $25 million is allocated statewide for capital projects, for a system that has more than $1 billion worth of needed repairs and infrastructure improvements pending.
“We’ve got to do more with less,” said Heather Mabee, Saratoga-Capital District Regional Parks Commission chair. “As long as there’s no further reductions we think statewide we can keep all of our parks and historic sites open. As far as we understand from the governor, there should not be any more staffing reductions.”
The commission met Wednesday at Saratoga Spa State Park with regional state parks leaders. The Saratoga-Capital region has 10 parks and 10 historic sites.
Last year, some parks — such as John Boyd Thacher Park in the Heldebergs — were temporarily closed because of the state’s dire fiscal condition, forcing the cancelation of many events and private functions such as weddings. Despite this, attendance at Saratoga-Capital parks and historic sites rose 16 percent, the most of any region in the state.
Officials attributed this to good weather compared to the rainy summer of 2009, an economy that kept people close to home and strong support from “friends” groups at several state parks.
Assistant Regional Commissioner Robert Kuhn said there are no major state-funded capital projects slated for Saratoga Spa State Park this year. However, fundraising has made new walks, steps and interpretive signage possible at the park’s Geyser Springs area. A ribbon-cutting is slated for Tuesday, May 24.
Elsewhere, plans call for replacing old bathhouses and showers at Thompson’s Lake in East Berne and increasing the number of campsites from 20 to 30 at Cherry Plain State Park. Continued...
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Sunday, March 06, 2011
oh how we love edward gorey, his spooky sensibility and adoration of New York City Ballet was very Saratoga.
NEWS bulletin from the spirit world: The specter of Edward Gorey, who died in 2000 at the age of 75, is haunting our collective unconscious.
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In a sense that’s as it should be; Gorey was born to be posthumous. His poisonously funny little picture books — deadpan accounts of murder, disaster and discreet depravity, narrated in a voice that affects the world-weary tone of British novelists like Ronald Firbank and Ivy Compton-Burnett — established him as the master of high-camp macabre.
Told in verse and illustrated in a style that crosses Surrealism with the Victorian true-crime gazette, Gorey stories are set in some unmistakably British place, in a time that is vaguely Victorian, Edwardian and Jazz Age all at once. Though Gorey was a 20th-century American, he conjured a world of gramophones and cars that start with cranks, of boater-hatted men in Eton collars knocking croquet balls across the lawn while sloe-eyed vamps in cloches look on, and sinister things sink, bubbling, into the reflecting pond. His titles are instructive: “The Fatal Lozenge,” “The Deadly Blotter,” “The Hapless Child,” “The Haunted Tea-Cosy.”
A wide audience has long known Gorey’s work from the 31-year-old animations used to introduce the PBS series “Mystery!” (now “Masterpiece Mystery”). The playfully perverse vignettes include a skulking villain in a cape and a swooning ingénue.
Before “Mystery!” Gorey’s set for the 1977 Broadway production of “Dracula” — large-scale versions of his black-and-white drawings, each melodramatically highlighted with a single, blood-red detail — spread his fame far beyond theatergoers.
But until the last few years true Gorey devotees were a secret society, wearing Gorey-philia like a Masonic ring. Now, however, their numbers have swelled. The writer Daniel Handler, better known as Lemony Snicket, said, “When I was first writing ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events,’ I was wandering around everywhere saying, ‘I am a complete rip-off of Edward Gorey,’ and everyone said, ‘Who’s that?’ Now, everyone says, ‘That’s right, you are a complete rip-off of Edward Gorey.’ ”
Tim Burton owes an obvious debt to Gorey, as do Rob Reger, creator of the goth gamine Emily the Strange, and Neil Gaiman, the author of the novella “Coraline.” Mr. Gaiman has an original Gorey drawing of “children gathered around a sickbed” hanging on his bedroom wall; he wanted Gorey to illustrate “Coraline,” he said, but he “died the day I finished it.”
Gorey illustrations are even becoming voguish as tattoos. Last year the ninth-season “American Idol” finalist Siobhan Magnus had a biceps tattoo of Death playing nanny to a flock of soon-to-be-doomed children, from “The Gashlycrumb Tinies,” Gorey’s grimly funny alphabet book.
The market for Gorey books and merchandise buoys indie publishers like Pomegranate, which brings some of Gorey’s books back into print each year, and Fantagraphics, which is releasing a third edition of “The Strange Case of Edward Gorey,” a portrait by the novelist and longtime Gorey friend Alexander Theroux. Attendance has been climbing steadily at the Edward Gorey House in Yarmouth Port, Mass., and curators of the first major traveling exhibition of Gorey’s original art, “Elegant Enigmas” — originally shown at the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pa., and now on view at the Boston Athenaeum — have been stunned by the enthusiasm surrounding the show.
“I knew Gorey had a wide following, but I had no idea of the mania,” said David Dearinger, an Athenaeum curator, before the exhibition opened there in February. News media inquiries and calls from the public had been coming in for months, he said then, “and the show isn’t even here yet.” Since the opening, he said last month, “the response has been phenomenal.”
Opinions differ about why Gorey — whose name increasingly serves as shorthand for a postmodern twist on the gothic that crosses irony, high camp and black comedy — is casting a longer shadow these days. Mr. Handler attributes Gorey’s growing popularity partly to the sophisticated understatement of his hand-cranked world, a sensibility that stands out sharply against the exuberant vulgarity of our age of jeggings, “Bridalplasty” and “Jackass 3D.” “That worldview — that a well-timed scathing remark might shame an uncouth person into acting better — seems worthy to me,” Mr. Handler said.
Undoubtedly such romanticized visions of a more decorous, dapper past, which also inform the neo-Victorian and neo-Edwardian street styles of goths and steampunks, have as much to do with escapism as historical fact. But accurately or not, such subcultures see in Gorey’s work an invitation “to return to a time of gentility,” to quote the promoters of the annual Edwardian Ball, a celebration of Gorey.
In contrast, some fashion designers see Gorey’s anachronistic use of historical references as perfect for our age of mash-ups and remixes. The neo-Victorian couturier Kambriel, whose shows have featured Gorey-inspired sets and models reciting Gorey limericks, said that in her designs, as in Gorey’s tales, “the propriety of the past” is infused with the “playful mischief and irreverence” of the present.
Even a more established designer like Anna Sui has drawn inspiration from him. “My big attraction to Edward Gorey is that he picked up on all those cultures and was inspired by them but kind of spun them in his own brain and made his own world,” she said. Similarly, Martyn Jacques, the singer for the British “dark cabaret” act the Tiger Lillies — whose Grammy-nominated collaboration with the Kronos Quartet, “The Gorey End” (2003), set unpublished Gorey tales to the band’s seasick accordion and castrato vocals — celebrates Gorey’s refusal to bow to a boomer-dominated culture.
“When I was growing up you’d hear all these musicians, and they were all inspired by the Rolling Stones or Jimi Hendrix,” said Mr. Jacques, 51. “I thought to myself: ‘Why only be inspired by the 1960s? Why can’t you be inspired by the 1860s?’ ”
Mr. Dearinger attributes Gorey’s appeal to what he sees as the rise of cynicism in America since the ’60s. “I don’t mean cynicism in a totally negative way,” he said. “It’s the same kind of attitude that would look back and enjoy Jane Austen but enjoy Trollope even more. There wouldn’t be a Gorey, if there hadn’t been this late-20th-century fascination with camp and irony and cynicism.”
Gorey was an early adopter of this sensibility. At Harvard from 1946 to ’50, where he roomed with the poet Frank O’Hara, Gorey borrowed a page from the bourgeois-mocking wit of writers like Firbank and Oscar Wilde to create a deadpan, ironic worldview, one that appears strikingly contemporary in retrospect.
Such historically minded analyses can lose sight of the straightforward delights of Gorey’s art — his astonishing draftsmanship and pitch-perfect composition, informed by a lifelong love of film, theater and ballet. Many of the images “look like theater sets, so there’s that dramatic appeal to it,” Mr. Dearinger said. “They’re very well composed, easy to read, yet there’s enough detail in them that every time you look at them you’ll see something you hadn’t seen before.” Dizzily crosshatched or stippled, Gorey’s exquisitely rendered images reveal an encyclopedic knowledge of period architecture, wallpaper, fashion and interior design. They rejoice in repeated patterns, which contribute to what Mr. Dearinger called their “wonderfully decorative quality.”
Gorey-philes who take in the Boston Athenaeum show may be amazed to learn that Gorey’s original illustrations were no larger than their reproductions in books, typically just a few inches on a side. “You can picture him with his nose right on the paper, practically, and the pen just making tiny, tiny little strokes, each one where it’s supposed to be,” Mr. Dearinger said. “The amazing thing is that the mind that’s creating this already knows what it’s going to look like when you step back from it.”
Intriguingly, explanations for the mounting popularity of Gorey’s art rarely touch on its air of hidden, maybe even unknowable meaning. Whatever Gorey’s work appears to be about, it’s forever insinuating, in its poker-faced way, that it’s really, truly about something else. The philosopher Jacques Derrida might have said it is this very elusiveness — the sense that meaning can never be pinned down by language — that is Gorey’s overarching point.
For his part, Gorey, who rolled his eyes at anyone looking for deep meaning in his work, would doubtless have groaned (theatrically) at any attempt to make intellectual sense of his posthumous popularity.
As he liked to say, “When people are finding meaning in things — beware.”
A version of this article appeared in print on March 6, 2011, on page AR20 of the New York edition.
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Vince DeWitt/Associated Press
Edward Gorey More Photos »
In a sense that’s as it should be; Gorey was born to be posthumous. His poisonously funny little picture books — deadpan accounts of murder, disaster and discreet depravity, narrated in a voice that affects the world-weary tone of British novelists like Ronald Firbank and Ivy Compton-Burnett — established him as the master of high-camp macabre.
Told in verse and illustrated in a style that crosses Surrealism with the Victorian true-crime gazette, Gorey stories are set in some unmistakably British place, in a time that is vaguely Victorian, Edwardian and Jazz Age all at once. Though Gorey was a 20th-century American, he conjured a world of gramophones and cars that start with cranks, of boater-hatted men in Eton collars knocking croquet balls across the lawn while sloe-eyed vamps in cloches look on, and sinister things sink, bubbling, into the reflecting pond. His titles are instructive: “The Fatal Lozenge,” “The Deadly Blotter,” “The Hapless Child,” “The Haunted Tea-Cosy.”
A wide audience has long known Gorey’s work from the 31-year-old animations used to introduce the PBS series “Mystery!” (now “Masterpiece Mystery”). The playfully perverse vignettes include a skulking villain in a cape and a swooning ingénue.
Before “Mystery!” Gorey’s set for the 1977 Broadway production of “Dracula” — large-scale versions of his black-and-white drawings, each melodramatically highlighted with a single, blood-red detail — spread his fame far beyond theatergoers.
But until the last few years true Gorey devotees were a secret society, wearing Gorey-philia like a Masonic ring. Now, however, their numbers have swelled. The writer Daniel Handler, better known as Lemony Snicket, said, “When I was first writing ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events,’ I was wandering around everywhere saying, ‘I am a complete rip-off of Edward Gorey,’ and everyone said, ‘Who’s that?’ Now, everyone says, ‘That’s right, you are a complete rip-off of Edward Gorey.’ ”
Tim Burton owes an obvious debt to Gorey, as do Rob Reger, creator of the goth gamine Emily the Strange, and Neil Gaiman, the author of the novella “Coraline.” Mr. Gaiman has an original Gorey drawing of “children gathered around a sickbed” hanging on his bedroom wall; he wanted Gorey to illustrate “Coraline,” he said, but he “died the day I finished it.”
Gorey illustrations are even becoming voguish as tattoos. Last year the ninth-season “American Idol” finalist Siobhan Magnus had a biceps tattoo of Death playing nanny to a flock of soon-to-be-doomed children, from “The Gashlycrumb Tinies,” Gorey’s grimly funny alphabet book.
The market for Gorey books and merchandise buoys indie publishers like Pomegranate, which brings some of Gorey’s books back into print each year, and Fantagraphics, which is releasing a third edition of “The Strange Case of Edward Gorey,” a portrait by the novelist and longtime Gorey friend Alexander Theroux. Attendance has been climbing steadily at the Edward Gorey House in Yarmouth Port, Mass., and curators of the first major traveling exhibition of Gorey’s original art, “Elegant Enigmas” — originally shown at the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pa., and now on view at the Boston Athenaeum — have been stunned by the enthusiasm surrounding the show.
“I knew Gorey had a wide following, but I had no idea of the mania,” said David Dearinger, an Athenaeum curator, before the exhibition opened there in February. News media inquiries and calls from the public had been coming in for months, he said then, “and the show isn’t even here yet.” Since the opening, he said last month, “the response has been phenomenal.”
Opinions differ about why Gorey — whose name increasingly serves as shorthand for a postmodern twist on the gothic that crosses irony, high camp and black comedy — is casting a longer shadow these days. Mr. Handler attributes Gorey’s growing popularity partly to the sophisticated understatement of his hand-cranked world, a sensibility that stands out sharply against the exuberant vulgarity of our age of jeggings, “Bridalplasty” and “Jackass 3D.” “That worldview — that a well-timed scathing remark might shame an uncouth person into acting better — seems worthy to me,” Mr. Handler said.
Undoubtedly such romanticized visions of a more decorous, dapper past, which also inform the neo-Victorian and neo-Edwardian street styles of goths and steampunks, have as much to do with escapism as historical fact. But accurately or not, such subcultures see in Gorey’s work an invitation “to return to a time of gentility,” to quote the promoters of the annual Edwardian Ball, a celebration of Gorey.
In contrast, some fashion designers see Gorey’s anachronistic use of historical references as perfect for our age of mash-ups and remixes. The neo-Victorian couturier Kambriel, whose shows have featured Gorey-inspired sets and models reciting Gorey limericks, said that in her designs, as in Gorey’s tales, “the propriety of the past” is infused with the “playful mischief and irreverence” of the present.
Even a more established designer like Anna Sui has drawn inspiration from him. “My big attraction to Edward Gorey is that he picked up on all those cultures and was inspired by them but kind of spun them in his own brain and made his own world,” she said. Similarly, Martyn Jacques, the singer for the British “dark cabaret” act the Tiger Lillies — whose Grammy-nominated collaboration with the Kronos Quartet, “The Gorey End” (2003), set unpublished Gorey tales to the band’s seasick accordion and castrato vocals — celebrates Gorey’s refusal to bow to a boomer-dominated culture.
“When I was growing up you’d hear all these musicians, and they were all inspired by the Rolling Stones or Jimi Hendrix,” said Mr. Jacques, 51. “I thought to myself: ‘Why only be inspired by the 1960s? Why can’t you be inspired by the 1860s?’ ”
Mr. Dearinger attributes Gorey’s appeal to what he sees as the rise of cynicism in America since the ’60s. “I don’t mean cynicism in a totally negative way,” he said. “It’s the same kind of attitude that would look back and enjoy Jane Austen but enjoy Trollope even more. There wouldn’t be a Gorey, if there hadn’t been this late-20th-century fascination with camp and irony and cynicism.”
Gorey was an early adopter of this sensibility. At Harvard from 1946 to ’50, where he roomed with the poet Frank O’Hara, Gorey borrowed a page from the bourgeois-mocking wit of writers like Firbank and Oscar Wilde to create a deadpan, ironic worldview, one that appears strikingly contemporary in retrospect.
Such historically minded analyses can lose sight of the straightforward delights of Gorey’s art — his astonishing draftsmanship and pitch-perfect composition, informed by a lifelong love of film, theater and ballet. Many of the images “look like theater sets, so there’s that dramatic appeal to it,” Mr. Dearinger said. “They’re very well composed, easy to read, yet there’s enough detail in them that every time you look at them you’ll see something you hadn’t seen before.” Dizzily crosshatched or stippled, Gorey’s exquisitely rendered images reveal an encyclopedic knowledge of period architecture, wallpaper, fashion and interior design. They rejoice in repeated patterns, which contribute to what Mr. Dearinger called their “wonderfully decorative quality.”
Gorey-philes who take in the Boston Athenaeum show may be amazed to learn that Gorey’s original illustrations were no larger than their reproductions in books, typically just a few inches on a side. “You can picture him with his nose right on the paper, practically, and the pen just making tiny, tiny little strokes, each one where it’s supposed to be,” Mr. Dearinger said. “The amazing thing is that the mind that’s creating this already knows what it’s going to look like when you step back from it.”
Intriguingly, explanations for the mounting popularity of Gorey’s art rarely touch on its air of hidden, maybe even unknowable meaning. Whatever Gorey’s work appears to be about, it’s forever insinuating, in its poker-faced way, that it’s really, truly about something else. The philosopher Jacques Derrida might have said it is this very elusiveness — the sense that meaning can never be pinned down by language — that is Gorey’s overarching point.
For his part, Gorey, who rolled his eyes at anyone looking for deep meaning in his work, would doubtless have groaned (theatrically) at any attempt to make intellectual sense of his posthumous popularity.
As he liked to say, “When people are finding meaning in things — beware.”
A version of this article appeared in print on March 6, 2011, on page AR20 of the New York edition.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
A beatle comes to New York City Ballet,nytimes,2/23/11.
February 23, 2011, 2:17 pm
Paul McCartney Collaborates With City Ballet
By DANIEL J. WAKIN
In an unexpected intersection of celebrity pop music and ballet, that most refined of the performing arts, Paul McCartney has written a major orchestral work for New York City Ballet.
Richard Perry/The New York Times Paul McCartney, above at the Apollo Theater in December, has written an orchestral work for New York City Ballet.
It is a love story titled “Ocean’s Kingdom” and will be performed at the company’s fall gala on Sept. 22 and on other yet-to-be determined dates next season, Mr. McCartney and company officials said. Peter Martins, the company’s ballet master in chief, will create the choreography.
In its current state, the ballet lasts about 45 to 50 minutes, is divided into four acts and will feature a cast of about 40 to 45, including four or five main roles. A composer, John Wilson, is helping with the final orchestration, and the first act is to be played through at the David H. Koch Theater, the company’s home, on Thursday.
The other half of the gala program will consist of George Balanchine’s “Union Jack,” a sprawling work that Mr. Martins said would be a tribute to City Ballet’s latest Liverpudlian contributor.
Mr. McCartney first mentioned that he was working on a ballet score in an interview with the BBC in June, then set off speculative babble among balletomanes and pop music fans this month when he said at an awards ceremony in London that an announcement about the piece was coming soon.
In his first interview about the work, Mr. McCartney on Wednesday called it “basically a romantic story” involving two worlds — the ocean kingdom, representing purity, and the earth kingdom, “the sort of baddies.” The daughter of the ocean king falls in love with the brother of the earth king, and “you’ll have to see whether the couple make it,” Mr. McCartney said. “There’s all sort of troubles along the way.”
Mr. McCartney has long staked a claim in the world of classical music, and branching out into ballet music is just his latest foray into other realms. He has published books of poetry and children’s literature, and mounted shows of his paintings.
Mr. Martins said the idea of a collaboration popped into his head when he ran into Mr. McCartney at a fund-raiser for the School of American Ballet, the company’s training ground, a year ago.
“Of course, being a Beatles fan — because that’s my generation — I was very intrigued,” Mr. Martins said. “I knew of course about his foray into classical music and his interest in it. I said to him, ‘Maybe we could do something together.’ ”
The two men said that over the course of the year they consulted regularly.
“This is Paul’s baby,” Mr. Martins said, adding with tongue in cheek, “The only thing he has left to do is choreograph.” He said Mr. McCartney created the libretto on his own.
“He knows exactly what this is going to look like,” Mr. Martins said. “He even has choreographic suggestions. He did a nice little jump for me. I said, ‘To me, Paul, that needs work.’ ”
Mr. McCartney said he took up the suggestion because “I can’t refuse an offer,” especially one to do something fresh and challenging.
“I’ve come to love working with orchestras,” he said. “It’s a great palette.”
He wrote some “speculative” music and began reading about dance and attending ballet performances.
“For me, the sheer athleticism is the most astounding thing about what I’m seeing,” he said. “It’s like a meeting of the Olympic games and art, and I find that fascinating and challenging for me, to see what can be done.”
Paul McCartney Collaborates With City Ballet
By DANIEL J. WAKIN
In an unexpected intersection of celebrity pop music and ballet, that most refined of the performing arts, Paul McCartney has written a major orchestral work for New York City Ballet.
Richard Perry/The New York Times Paul McCartney, above at the Apollo Theater in December, has written an orchestral work for New York City Ballet.
It is a love story titled “Ocean’s Kingdom” and will be performed at the company’s fall gala on Sept. 22 and on other yet-to-be determined dates next season, Mr. McCartney and company officials said. Peter Martins, the company’s ballet master in chief, will create the choreography.
In its current state, the ballet lasts about 45 to 50 minutes, is divided into four acts and will feature a cast of about 40 to 45, including four or five main roles. A composer, John Wilson, is helping with the final orchestration, and the first act is to be played through at the David H. Koch Theater, the company’s home, on Thursday.
The other half of the gala program will consist of George Balanchine’s “Union Jack,” a sprawling work that Mr. Martins said would be a tribute to City Ballet’s latest Liverpudlian contributor.
Mr. McCartney first mentioned that he was working on a ballet score in an interview with the BBC in June, then set off speculative babble among balletomanes and pop music fans this month when he said at an awards ceremony in London that an announcement about the piece was coming soon.
In his first interview about the work, Mr. McCartney on Wednesday called it “basically a romantic story” involving two worlds — the ocean kingdom, representing purity, and the earth kingdom, “the sort of baddies.” The daughter of the ocean king falls in love with the brother of the earth king, and “you’ll have to see whether the couple make it,” Mr. McCartney said. “There’s all sort of troubles along the way.”
Mr. McCartney has long staked a claim in the world of classical music, and branching out into ballet music is just his latest foray into other realms. He has published books of poetry and children’s literature, and mounted shows of his paintings.
Mr. Martins said the idea of a collaboration popped into his head when he ran into Mr. McCartney at a fund-raiser for the School of American Ballet, the company’s training ground, a year ago.
“Of course, being a Beatles fan — because that’s my generation — I was very intrigued,” Mr. Martins said. “I knew of course about his foray into classical music and his interest in it. I said to him, ‘Maybe we could do something together.’ ”
The two men said that over the course of the year they consulted regularly.
“This is Paul’s baby,” Mr. Martins said, adding with tongue in cheek, “The only thing he has left to do is choreograph.” He said Mr. McCartney created the libretto on his own.
“He knows exactly what this is going to look like,” Mr. Martins said. “He even has choreographic suggestions. He did a nice little jump for me. I said, ‘To me, Paul, that needs work.’ ”
Mr. McCartney said he took up the suggestion because “I can’t refuse an offer,” especially one to do something fresh and challenging.
“I’ve come to love working with orchestras,” he said. “It’s a great palette.”
He wrote some “speculative” music and began reading about dance and attending ballet performances.
“For me, the sheer athleticism is the most astounding thing about what I’m seeing,” he said. “It’s like a meeting of the Olympic games and art, and I find that fascinating and challenging for me, to see what can be done.”
Monday, February 21, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Opera Saratoga announces 2011 schedule. Tra-la, can Spring be far behind?
Opera Saratoga reveals season
By Michael Janairo Arts And Entertainment Editor
Published: 12:00 a.m., Thursday, February 10, 2011
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Opera Saratoga, which was formerly known as Lake George Opera, will be celebrating its 50th season this summer with a special anniversary concert and two operas produced in its first year: Strauss' "Die Fledermaus" and Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte."
This season marks the company's 14th summer at the Spa Little Theater at the Saratoga Spa State Park. In addition to the performances, the company also offers pre-performance talks about the operas (free for ticketholders), a free concert outdoors, the annual ball and a family-friendly opera to be performed during SaratogaArtsFest.
Subscriptions range in price from $130 to $190 and are now available at 584-6018. Single tickets go on sale mid-February. Visit the Opera's website at http://www.operasaratoga.org for additional information.
Here are the main events of the season:
Main Stage Productions at Spa Little Theater
"Die Fledermaus": 7:30 p.m. June 29, July 2; 2 p.m. July 5, 10. Performed in English and featuring Kyle Pfortmiller ("The Barber of Seville," 2006; "Don Pasquale," 2009) as Eisenstein; Curt Olds ("The Pirate of Penzance," 2008) as Dr. Falke; Elizabeth Pojanowski, a 2010 apprentice artist, as Prince Orlofsky; and Metropolitan Opera soprano Emily Pulley as Rosalinda. Opera Artistic Director Curtis Tucker will conduct and Nelson Sheeley will direct.
"Cosi Fan Tutte": 7:30 p.m. June 30, July 9; 2 p.m. July 3, 6. In Italian with English titles features John Stephens ("Don Pasquale," 2009) as Don Alfonso; Adriana Zabala ("The Barber of Seville," 2006) as Dorabella; and Andrew Garland ("La Boheme," 2007) as Guglielmo. David Lefkowich, who directed the 2008 production of "La Traviata," returns to direct and Albany Symphony Orchestra's Music Director David Alan Miller will conduct.
50th Anniversary Concert: 7:30 p.m. July 8. Artistic Director Curtis Tucker and returning guest conductor Mark Flint will take the audience on a musical journey through the company's first 50 years, with returning guest artists accompanied by the Opera Saratoga Orchestra. Flint has conducted more performances for the company than any other conductor.
Free Opera Insights: There will be free pre-performance opera talks for ticket holders one hour before each performance in the Spa Little Theater. Patrons will hear the history and stories behind each opera, as well as information regarding the casts and director.
Other events
"The Trial of BB Wolf": June 10-12. Opera Artistic Director Curtis Tucker has composed a new family-friendly opera that will be performed during SaratogaArtsFest weekend. The opera features elements of favorite children's stories set to music composed by Curtis Tucker with libretto by Nelson Sheeley. Tickets are available through http://www.SaratogaArtsFest.org.
2011 50th Anniversary Opera Ball: 7 p.m. July 1. The Saratoga Hilton Hotel. Opera Saratoga's gala will feature Albany band Spare Parts and will take place for the first time at the Saratoga Hilton Hotel. Ted and Carol Newlin serve as the 50th anniversary chairpersons and Helen Mastrion and Courtney Smith are auction co-chairs. Proceeds will benefit Opera Saratoga's numerous educational programs.
Free Concert in Congress Park: 5 p.m. July 4. Opera Saratoga will perform a free concert as part of Saratoga's annual Independence Day celebration. Listen to arias prior to the city's firework display.
Reach Janairo at mjanairo@timesunion.com or 454-5629.
Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/Opera-Saratoga-reveals-season-1005466.php#ixzz1DZ1Nx4qV
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Hoping for no pool/park closures this year! times union 2/9/11.
ALBANY -- Don't expect a repeat of last spring's budget-driven threats to close state parks, the acting head of the park system told a panel of state lawmakers Tuesday during a hearing on Gov. Andrew Cuomo's proposed 2010-11 budget.
But get ready for a different kind of drama around the beginning of June, when the state Department of Environmental Conservation is slated to release proposed rules to regulate the controversial natural gas drilling technique called hydrofracking.
Andy Beers, acting commissioner of the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, credited layoffs during the waning days of the Paterson administration with giving the park system breathing room to absorb the additional spending cut of 6.2 percent, or $19 million, sought by Cuomo.
"We will not be repeating last year's scenario," Beers said during a hearing of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee. The budget also contains no changes in park fees, with Beers saying fee hikes last year have brought the parks "up to market rates."
A park advocacy group that includes former parks commissioner Carol Ash, who went through the political firestorm that followed last year's closure threats, took Beers' announcement with a grain of salt.
"While it may be reassuring to hear that the agency has no plans to close parks at this time, it is difficult to see how they will be able to achieve required savings without serious service reductions and even closure of some park operations," said Erik Kulleseid, director of the Alliance for New York State Parks.
His group called for the state to impose a 1-cent fee on disposable plastic grocery store shopping bags that would yield $60 million a year help pay for the parks. The group released a poll of 1,000 registered state voters that found 73 percent supported the idea of the bag fee.
"The crisis facing New York's state parks goes far beyond this year's budget proposal. Although parks may be open, there are pools and campsites not open due to the continuing deterioration of the system," Kulleseid said.
Saturday, February 05, 2011
Thursday, February 03, 2011
Saratoga Spa State Park attendance up almost 500,000 in 2010. Victoria Pool attendance way up. Umbrella fundraiser being considered.
State parks see rise in attendance, but lose budget money
Story Discussion State parks see rise in attendance, but lose budget money
DREW KERR - dkerr@poststar.com The Post-Star | Posted: Thursday, February 3, 2011 11:45 am | (3) Comments
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Jason McKibben
Jason McKibben - jmckibben@poststar.com Moreau Lake State Park nature educator Rebecca Mullins, center, leads a snowshoe hike through the park's Red Oak Ridge trail Tuesday, January 25, 2011. The park maintains an active calendar with events targeting people of all ages. Attendance at state parks in the Saratoga-Capital region jumped significantly last year.
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Snowshoe through Moreau Lake State Park
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Parks attendance by the numbers
Gov. Andrew Cuomo's 2011-12 budget proposal calls for the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation to cut spending by more than 8 percent in the next budget cycle.
The total budget would fall from $228 million to $209 million. The proposed reduction comes as attendance at state parks reaches record highs.
In 2010, officials reported that attendance at state parks topped 56.9 million, up more than 1 million visitors from the year before.
Attendance is also growing locally.
A look at the numbers:
Saratoga Spa State Park
2010 - 1,948,587
2009 - 1,480,000
2008 - 1,449,000
2007 - 1,742,545
2006 - 1,483,000
2005 - 835,000
Moreau Lake State Park
2010 - 425,167
2009 - 396,000
2008 - 368,000
2007 - 357,000
2006 - 268,000
2005 - 338,000
Hard hit over the last several budget cycles, New York's state parks and historical sites are facing another austere year, even as the number of visitors coming to the venues grows.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo's 2011-12 budget proposal, released Tuesday, calls for a more than 8 percent cut in spending at the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. The department's budget would fall from $228 million to $209 million under the proposal.
Supporters say the parks have absorbed severe cuts each of the last two years and further reductions could compromise infrastructure and deter visitors.
"The integrity of the system that's been built up over generations, really the fabric of our state park system, is just going to be torn," said Robin Dropkin, executive director at Parks and Trails New York.
Dropkin said she has been told that no parks or historic sites are expected to close, but parks officials on Wednesday refused to say how they would absorb the funding cuts, if approved by state lawmakers.
Testimony from parks leaders is due Feb. 8, and more details should be revealed about the budget impact at that time, officials said.
Last year, asked to cut $11 million from their budget, state parks officials said they would need to close more than 50 state parks and historic sites, while cutting back at another 24 parks.
The John Brown Historical Site near Lake Placid, where the abolitionist lived and is buried, was among the sites threatened with closure. Officials also considered shuttering the Victoria Pool at Saratoga Spa State Park.
Fierce opposition led to the withdrawal of the closure plans, but supporters say the parks system is, nonetheless, suffering from a lack of state support.
Even if no parks are closed this year, Dropkin and others say they are concerned that infrastructure is not being maintained and that putting off repairs could lead to more costly work in the future.
"The bottom line is parks are still hurting, they're still operating on a shoestring budget and they're in trouble," Dropkin said.
The cuts are surprising, supporters say, because attendance at parks is at an all-time high and parks have been shown to generate tax revenue for the communities where they're located.
In 2010, officials reported that 56.9 million visitors visited the state's 213 parks and historic sites, up by more than 1 million visitors from 2009.
Locally, Saratoga Spa State Park and Moreau Lake State Park drew more than 2.37 million visitors last year - up
more than 27 percent from 2009.
Parks supporters say they might have to begin augmenting the state budget with outside dollars.
Corporate donors or foundation money should be sought, or a dedicated funding stream created to help offset losses in state aid, they say.
The funding stream could come from a voluntary surcharge on motor vehicle registrations or a penny tax on plastic bags, according to Erik Kulleseid, the director of a new parks advocacy group, the Alliance for New York State Parks.
"You can debate whether the state should or should not be paying for these things, but at the end of the day if you want things to change we have to start looking elsewhere," he said.
Louise Goldstien of Saratoga Springs, a leader of the Save the Victoria Pool Society, said group members are considering an money-raising effort to support a project unlikely to get state support.
Group members want to bring in as many as 40 new umbrellas they believe are needed at the pool but which could cost up to $15,000, and they are thinking about holding a fundraiser to support the effort.
"We always felt like we were paying for the parks already with our tax dollars," she said. "But this year I don't think we have a chance. These are different times."
Not everyone is on board with the idea of expanding public-private partnerships.
Martha Swan, director of John Brown Lives, which supports education efforts at the John Brown Historic Site, said she is uncomfortable with the idea of raising money for the site.
The site, which will be particularly important this year as the country celebrates the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, should be supported by the state, she said.
"It's a very troubling scenario for me because I feel like parks and historic sites are a part of the public good, they're part of what makes people feel like part of this place," Swan said. "And it feels like the state is diminishing their commitment to the common good."
Copyright 2011 The Post-Star. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Posted in Local, Saratoga on Thursday, February 3, 2011 11:45 am Updated: 5:11 pm. | Tags: New York, Andrew Cuo
Sunday, January 30, 2011
come chowder-up on Saturday everybody.
Saratoga Springs set to welcome chowder heads again
Sunday, January 30, 2011
By Jeff Wilkin (Contact)
Gazette Reporter
Photographer: Bruce Squiers
Connie Crudo relaxes at Bailey’s in Saratoga Springs with chowders prepared to promote next month’s Chowderfest in the city.Text Size: A | A | A
As queen of Saratoga Springs’ summer society, Marylou Whitney knows all about haute cuisine.
Quail in puff pastry shells — served with foie gras and truffle sauce — is a natural for an August party.
As a queen of Saratoga Springs’ winter society, Connie Crudo is an expert on hot cuisine. Clam chowder, sausage chowder, corn chowder and shrimp chowder are naturals for the February party Crudo puts together every year.
The gathering is Saratoga’s 13th annual Chowderfest, part of the city’s Winterfest. This year’s pilgrimage for potatoes, clams and assorted vegetables will be held Saturday from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. About 60 restaurants will serve chowder in 3-ounce cups for $1 a sample, and about 60 chefs hope their concoctions are convicted of culinary excellence — and win one of six “best of” categories.
“I think Chowderfest is an affordable, fun thing to do on a cold day,” said Crudo, membership and services coordinator for the Saratoga Convention and Tourism Bureau and unofficial queen of the party. “I think we’ve got great restaurants and these restaurants have great reputations. There are diverse offerings, and there are a lot of bars that sell chowder, too.”
Saratoga Springs 13th annual Chowderfest
WHEN: Saturday
WHERE: Assorted restaurants in Saratoga Springs
HOW MUCH: $1 per 3-ounce sample of chowder
MORE INFO: www.discoversaratoga.org/chowderfest
The festival is a big deal for both restaurants and chowder lovers. “It’s a very family-oriented event,” Crudo said. “You see a lot of large groups, it’s great for the kids and it’s great for the older people. Everybody comes bundled up and prepared to stand in line.”
They pick up their ballots first, from any bar or restaurant on the chowder roster. They’ll taste the thick soups, and vote for favorites in categories that include “Best on Broadway,” “Best off Broadway,” “Best Newcomer” and “Best Non-Downtown.” Ballots will be dropped off at the Saratoga County Arts Council and the Saratoga Springs Visitor Center and tabulated later in the day.
Exploration and discovery
Exploration and discovery are two reasons people decide to try dozens of chowders, depending on their appetites. “There’s everything,” Crudo said. “There’s vegetable, there’s chicken chowders, clam chowders, shrimp chowders, Southwestern chowders. I can’t tell you who is serving what because that is top-secret, confidential information until the last minute.”
The event started small. “I have records that go back to 2002, and in that year there were 18 participants,” Crudo said. “In 2010, we had 56 participants.”
This year, Sperry’s, Lillian’s, the Parting Glass, Gaffney’s, Maestro’s and Stadium Cafe are in. So are Wheatfields, the Wishing Well, Cantina, the Grey Gelding, Hattie’s and the Seven Horse Pub. Even Ben & Jerry’s ice cream on Phila Street gets a piece of the action. Scoops of the store’s “Phish Food” ice cream were sold as dessert chowder in 2010. There are even chowders for dogs — pooch-friendly stores “Dawgdom,” “Impressions of Saratoga” and “Sloppy Kisses” will have bowls for the bark set.
Money raised by the convention bureau — each restaurant pays a $150 participation fee — is given to charity.
Joe Richardson, who owns both Bailey’s Cafe on Phila Street and the adjoining Peabody’s Sports Bar and Grille, said Chowderfest provides a boost for the community the same way Saratoga’s popular First Night does on New Year’s Eve. Other restaurant owners say the same thing — chowder attracts people to city kitchens during what is traditionally a slow time.
John Capelli, executive chef at the Olde Bryan Inn on Maple Avenue, said competitive spirit mixes with community spirit.
“It’s not necessarily about us winning,” Capelli said. “We all win. It’s a situation where Saratoga is known for a lot of things, horse racing, the spring waters and such, but we also have an excellent variety of restaurants. There are over 100 places to eat in this city. It’s an opportunity for people to maybe go to a restaurant they’ve never tried before.”
Sizing up the competition
Chefs can also check out what’s happening in other kitchens.
“You want to find out where they’ve got something better than you,” Capelli said. “So you can figure out what they did a little bit different. You’re sharing recipes. As competitive as it is, it’s a lot of fun. I’ve got chefs that come down and try ours after they wrap up and vice versa. One of the things I’m saying if I’m serving is, ‘Who’s the best so far? What do they have out there?’ We’re all curious about what each other is doing.”
Capelli said it’s also fun to watch people during the chowder Saturday. On snowy days, he’s seen people slide up to the Olde Bryan on cross-country skis. They park them next to the fireplace and sip the hot stuff. “It’s kind of like a live-action Norman Rockwell moment,” Capelli said.
Louis Maggiore, operating partner at Longfellows on Union Avenue, also appreciates the crush for chowder.
“If you walk down Broadway during the Chowderfest, there are people everywhere,” he said. “It’s great for the restaurants, people are talking to each other, everybody’s tasting a bowl of chowder, they’re having a good time. They make an all-day thing out of it, it’s almost like tailgating at a football game.
Richardson expects a lot of people and a lot of chowder at his two locations. “Last year, we did 1,911 cups at Bailey’s and 1,260 at Peabody’s — we ran out at 3:30 there,” Richardson said. He’s planning on between 60 and 70 gallons for the two restaurants this Saturday. And crackers — all Chowderfest participants get two cases of oyster crackers from the Westminster Cracker Co. in Rutland, Vt.
Crudo begins preparing for Chowderfest around the middle of December. Restaurants sign up, the party starts rolling and Connie is soon spending most of her time on chowder business. Office colleague Angela LaTerra takes care of advertising in newspapers, radio and magazines.
While chili contests still outnumber chowder parties, Crudo said soup shows are catching up. “They’re becoming more common,” she said. “Ballston Spa does a chowderfest now, Troy does a chowderfest now. I’ve got people calling me, ‘How do you do it? How can I have a chowderfest?’ I’ll share. Just don’t have it on the same day as ours.”
Because chowder heads are on the streets during the winter party, weather can be a concern. “A couple years ago, we had an ice storm the night before,” Crudo said. “By the time we got downtown, it was all cleaned up. The city has been very cooperative.”
Tabulating the votes
This year, Chowderfest has a new wrinkle. Instead of counting ballots over the weekend and announcing winners on Monday — the practice in past years — chowder fans are invited to a second party at the Saratoga City Center at 5:30 p.m. Ballots will be tabulated, and a cash bar and disc jockey will keep people occupied until results are announced.
“We’re trying to keep them downtown for a couple extra hours,” Crudo said.
And the event is becoming more ecologically friendly. A reusable mug with lid and spoon is available for $5, so people who make the purchase won’t be using and tossing bunches of disposable cups and spoons. The mugs are being sold at Celtic Treasures, Crafters Gallery, Crush and Cask Wine and Liquors, Impressions of Saratoga and Just Plain Good/Life Is Good.
Chowderfest is designed to warm interiors, but Crudo said some people want to warm exteriors, too. That’s why festival long-sleeve T-shirts have always been popular. The 2011 model costs $7.
“I once got an e-mail from a man in Florida who had always attended, but said he couldn’t make Chowderfest because of illness,” Crudo said. “He said, ‘I need my shirt. Can you mail me one?’ So I did. Can’t break up his collection.”
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Saturday, January 29, 2011
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