Words and Music

From the Musical Vault Dept. : I discovered the King’s Singers in 1982 and continue to admire not only their repertory of Renaissance materi...

From the Fridge Dept. : Fourteen years ago, we visited a Chatham restaurant called Ciao, as described in the review below. It doesn’t seem t...

THE GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL is presenting Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide” as its musical-theater offering this season, and it’s an excellent cho...

A recent issue of  Metroland aggregated the thoughts of its various writers about those times when technology seems to have gone too far. I ...

The Long Walk , Opera Saratoga AS BRIAN CASTNER and three of his fellow Explosive Ordnance Disposal specialists are driving back to base f...

From the Vault Dept .: Al Gallodoro was nearly 90 when I saw the concert reviewed below. His amazing career included stints in the orchestra...

The Magic Flute , Glimmerglass Opera, July 10 The Magic Flute is a mess of an opera that defies narrative convention, keeps you guessing a...

From the Vault Dept .: An unpublished piece that was replaced, that particular issue of Metroland , by one of my restaurant reviews. Yet the...

10 July 2015 | Photo by B. A. Nilsson

IT’S ALMOST INSULTING to our received images of warfare, this Battle of Agincourt, with a handful of black-clad actors suffering slo-mo agon...

From the Back of the Fridge Dept. : Where did I dine 15 years ago? is not a question typically asked in my household, but the exigencies of ...

From the Fields Dept .: Much has changed for the Van Amburgh family since I wrote this piece. They moved to a larger farm in Schoharie Count...

La favola d’Orfeo Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, Great Barrington, Mass., June 21 THE GREATEST TRIBUTE to the power of Claudio Monteverd...

12 June 2015 | Photo by B. A. Nilsson

The Epic of Gilgamesh Directed and designed by John Sowle, Bridge Street Theatre, Catskill, June 20 BEFORE GOD, THERE WAS GILGAMESH. His ...

From the Bookshelf Dept .: And while we’re on the topic of books, here’s a revisit of my 2003 review of Bob Rosen’s Nowhere Man , a fascinat...

From the Bookshelf Dept .: Another journey back a quarter-century, for my review of a book that itself saluted the nautical traditions of an...

The Cistern | 13 June 2015 | Photo by B. A. Nilsson

WE’RE NEVER FAR from a cup of coffee, be it an overpriced Starbucks concoction or a cup of diner joe. We do unspeakable things to our coffee...

From the Food Vault Dept .: I had to start somewhere, I guess, but the ignorance the review below reveals is staggering. And as noble as was...