Words and Music

From the Vault Dept.: I wrote this review little over a year ago, and I don't remember why. It wasn't published (until now), but it...

THE GHOSTS OF VERSAILLES are there to greet you as you settle into your theater seat. They’re garbed in white; they languish in the gloom be...

SOMEWHERE ALONG THE WAY the Patriarchy fell victim to what’s termed the Madonna-Whore Dichotomy, in which certain men, the dears, find sexua...

From the Glimmerglass Vault Dept .: My review of the Glimmerglass Festival’s world premiere of the opera “Blue” notes that librettist Tazew...

OPERA PLAYS HAVOC WITH TIME. Like a novel, it can speed or slow a moment or more, but it enhances the emotional import of those moments with...

From the Food Vault Dept .: I had the pleasure of lunching in Beirut the other day. Not the city in Lebanon, however: the restaurant in Troy...

AS SOON AS THE OVERTURE STARTS and you hear the banjo in the rhythm section, you know you’re off to a very different era. The Glimmerglass F...

From the Racing Vault Dept. : The Saratoga Race Track is about to open for another season, swelling the small city into an urban blowfish as...

“I LOVE SWEETS,” are the first words we hear from Ellen West, as sung by soprano Jennifer Zetlan. “Heaven would be dying on a bed of vanilla...

From the Food Vault Dept .: An entertainment arena opened in Albany, NY, in 1990. Originally monikered the Knickerbocker Arena, fiscal spons...

WHAT SHOULD BE THE COST of a healthy meal? We know that it’s going to be more expensive than what we’re accustomed to paying, whether in sup...

From the Vault Dept. : Thirty years ago, the Saratoga-area newspapers went into puff-mode overdrive with pieces about the city and its racet...

From the Actual Vault Dept .: For many years I was quite happy to write to order, so long as the checks came in, and I produced a number of ...

From the Vault Dept .: Saratoga Polo is about to begin its season, a tradition that begin there in the first year of the 20th century. Thank...

MY FIRST VIEWING OF “CITY LIGHTS” took place in a midtown-Manhattan revival house in the mid-1970s. I went to a midday showing with a high-s...

From the Food Vault Dept .: Somehow I managed to experience a dinner-and-a-movie venue in Saratoga Springs without actually seeing the movie...

AS WE CONTEMPLATE the implications of the life-changing choices we make, we’re dogged by a persistent worry: What will the neighbors think? ...

HIS FIRST INKLINGS of the immediacy of Nazi atrocities took place in a neighborhood bakery, in 1956, where the four-year-old Bobby Rosen spo...

From the Opera Vault Dept.: We’re gearing up for summer opera season, so here’s a re-visit to a time, thirty years ago, when the NYC Opera ...

Guest Blogger Dept. : Hello again, Mr. Benchley! The estimable Robert is here again with a piece that’s more timely than ever.             ...