Author: Saratoga TODAY

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Opera Saratoga is celebrating its 65th anniversary with a “modern new minimalism that makes room for maximum drama,” the company announced last Friday.

“With a move towards the future, Opera Saratoga announces an upcoming season that is stripped down, up close, and unmistakably NOW,” said General and Artistic Director Mary Birnbaum in a news release. “The modern audience has made it clear that it wants to connect with art that has a level of realness and purity. So, we’re pushing imagination to take center stage with minimal scenery and maximum drama.”

After the company’s first-ever winter offering, a semi-staged “La bohème” at Universal Preservation Hall on Dec. 5, the company will produce a touring education opera, “Stone Soup,” by Mark Campbell and Joe Illick. This opera will tour over 30 schools and community venues throughout March.

In May, Opera Saratoga and the Glimmerglass Festival will partner to present Kurt Weill, Berthold Brecht, and Elizabeth Hauptmann’s “Happy End.” Censored after its second performance in Germany in 1929, “Happy End” is a satire of “big business and big religion.” The show will be music directed by Robert Ainsley, the artistic and general director of the Glimmerglass Festival, and it’ll feature Ana Karneža, who won the Kurt Weill Foundation’s Lotte Lenya competition in 2024. The performance will be directed by Birnbaum in collaboration with the Glimmerglass Festival dramaturg Kelley Rourke. The piece will tour venues all over the state, including two performances at Universal Preservation Hall on May 28 and 30.

“This is an exciting new model of producing opera where regional companies partner with each other to bring opera to individual communities rather than expecting them to travel to us,” Birnbaum said.

The Opera Saratoga Summer Festival season, which features 20 rising opera stars selected from a pool of 850, will continue with the following performances: 

Rodgers & Hammerstein concert at the Mansion of Saratoga on May 31; 

Festival Artist Portrait Concerts focused on what made the singers want to become artists at Saratoga Arts on May 20 & 27 and June 3 & 10; 

Fully staged productions from June 20-28 of Lerner and Loewe’s “My Fair Lady,” Donizetti’s “The Elixir of Love,” and a workshop of “Drift” from Opera Saratoga’s first ever mainstage commission from an all-female team, composer Alyssa Weinberg and librettist, J. Mae Barizo.

In addition to these programming announcements, Opera Saratoga also announced the appointment of pianist, coach, and educator Adam Nielsen to the company as the head of music staff and director of the festival artist program.

“Adam’s work on the music staff of the Metropolitan Opera, as a recitalist with major opera stars like Davòne Tines and Ryan Speedo Green, as well as his work as an educator at The Juilliard School, make him a perfect fit to lead the Festival Artist Program into the next era of Opera Saratoga,” Birnbaum said. “In addition, we are so lucky to have Laurie Rogers continuing to lead the company in a new role as director of artistic operations.”

For more information about Opera Saratoga, visit operasaratoga.org.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Spring Street Gallery will be hosting “Harvest to Horizon,” a solo exhibition of paintings by local artist Kate Edwards, until Nov. 9. Edwards’ work reflects on landscapes and still lifes, with familiar scenes from the Adirondack region.

“Overall, Edwards’ style is painterly in the truest sense: expressive, textured, and guided by an emotional response to her subject rather than rigid precision,” said Belinda Colón, curator and director, in a news release.

A multidisciplinary artist, Edwards also specializes in fine art framing and co-owns Kettlewell & Edwards at 13 Phila Street in downtown Saratoga.

Spring Street Gallery’s hours are Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.; or by appointment by emailing springstreetgallerylist@gmail.com at least 24 hours in advance. The gallery is located at 110 Spring Street.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Lotus, an electronic rock group that has been a jam scene mainstay for decades, will perform at Putnam Place on April 15, 2026, in support of their new album, “Rise of the Anglerfish,” the venue announced this week. Tickets go on sale Friday, Nov. 7 at 10 a.m.

Lotus describes themselves as “innovators in blending electronic dance music with the jam band model of improvisation.” The group draws inspiration from genres such as psychedelic rock, krautrock, post-rock, disco, and funk. Over the last two decades, the band has toured extensively throughout the country, including at legendary venues like Red Rocks and at popular music festivals like Bonnaroo and Electric Forest.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Saratoga Torch Club invites the public to an evening of history and performance on Monday, Nov. 17 at the Saratoga Springs Holiday Inn. Dinner begins at 6 p.m., followed at 7 p.m. by Nathan Richardson’s portrayal of Frederick Douglass.

“My goal isn’t to reenact history,” Richardson said in a news release. “It’s to embody it—to bridge past and present in a conversation that still demands to be heard.”

A 22-year U.S. Army veteran, Richardson said that when he started reading Douglass’ work, he could “literally hear his voice—his rhythm, his cadence. It was like music to a poet’s ear.”

Richardson performs more than a dozen of Douglass’s speeches, from “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July” to his addresses on the Constitution and civil rights. Richardson’s presentations mix history, performance, and audience engagement, inviting spectators to ask Douglass anything they wish. That interaction, he said, is what makes interpretation different from reenactment. “A reenactor sticks to the script. An interpreter can talk about anything—the person’s friends, the politics, the price of bread. You become the person.”

For more information about the event or to reserve a seat, go to www.smartacus.com/civic-conversations/interpreting-frederick-douglass.

The Saratoga Torch Club is part of a national network of forums where professionals and community members meet to share ideas, promote civil discourse, and explore issues of public interest. Monthly dinners are open to the public and feature guest speakers from diverse fields.