More than two dozen GLTB singer/songwriters and bands will be performing during “Out In The Woods,” a marathon of music on two stages this weekend at Easton Mountain, the gay retreat center north of Albany. The event was conceived and organized by Steve Sims, who’s become well known in the Out Music worlds as co-host of The Quest of Life, a radio show from WRPI-FM in Troy.  Launched in 2004, the broadcast...

It’s amazing how Leon Botstein and Bard College’s SummerScape series keep coming up with “overlooked masterpieces” from the operatic repertoire.  At least that’s what the scholarly support materials tell us they are. The reality of what’s heard and seen on stage is often another matter. This year’s entry is “Die Liebe der Danae.” Richard Strauss’ second to last opera, it was completed in 1940 but only...

Jacob’s Pillow, the dance colony in Becket, Mass., is hosting a gay-themed weekend of performances, exhibitions and free events.  The second annual “Weekend Out” is a nice follow up to “The Untold Story of Jacob’s Pillow,” an article for the Gay & Lesbian Review by the Pillow’s archivist Norton Owen. JACOB’S PILLOW ANNOUNCES
SECOND ANNUAL LGBT “WEEKEND OUT”
AUGUST 5–7 FULL...

“We’ve only just begun” or some other ‘70s hit from The Carpenters was about as daring or off the beaten path as “Voigt Lessons” was expected to get.  After all, how much more could The Glimmerglass Festival and its new boss Francesca Zambello really expect from the great diva Deborah Voigt?  She was already starring in “Annie Get Your Gun” and doing it on the back roads of upstate New York for two long summer...

It was good to actually hear the Philadelphia Orchestra, rather than hear about the Philadelphia Orchestra. When it filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, the venerable institution became a sad symbol for the fragile state of the economy and the arts in general. Only the near demise of the New York City Opera — once an annual visitor to Saratoga — has been bigger news. Meanwhile the orchestra keeps playing and...

In a departure from recent tradition, the French piano virtuoso Jean-Yves Thibaudet won’t be making an appearance this summer at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. But his local fans will have ample opportunity to catch him at Tanglewood. He’ll be appearing three times in the coming week performing the music of his countryman, Maurice Ravel. Thibaudet will perform all of Ravel’s solo piano works over...

Playwright Tony Kushner is immersed in a dizzying amount of work, including crafting a new screenplay about Lincoln that’s still unfinished but is slated to begin filming in the fall with director Steven Speilberg. He’s also contributing new material to the season-long retrospective of his work at New York’s Signature Theatre. Kushner has a penchant for taking on big projects and important themes, starting...

Choral conductor and organist Kent Trittle, New York’s most prominent church musician, will be leaving his long-time post at St. Ignatius Loyola on Park Avenue to become music director of St. John the Divine Cathedral effective September 1. In a conversation with Daniel Watkin for the Times, he lists as among the reasons that he’s gay. “It’s tangential, but to be in a place where all people — I was...

Spending a full summer in Cooperstown just didn’t seem possible. The internationally acclaimed operatic star Deborah Voigt was too in demand to make that kind of long-term commitment. It was only last spring when Francesca Zambello, the recently appointed general and artistic director of the Glimmerglass Festival, approached the soprano about being the company’s artist in residence during summer 2011.  The two were...

CARMEN Glimmerglass Festival Opening Night, 7/2/11 In the new production of “Carmen,” which opened at the Glimmerglass Festival on Saturday, the action grows more tight and focused throughout the night until Carmen and Don Jose are alone in a ring.  In a daring moment of surrender, Carmen stops her tormenting ways and prostrates herself before her angry and jilted lover.  She seems to think better of it, but it’s too...