Saratoga Springs Summer Arts

July 7-10, 2005
Sponsored by TDF




This 4 day 3 night performing arts tour of Saratoga includes the following: round-trip motor coach transportation for duration of tour program, 3 nights at the Holiday Inn – Saratoga Springs, breakfast daily, 4 lunches, 2 dinners, 3 performance tickets, admissions per itinerary, post-ballet performance discussion, post performance talk at Adirondack Theatre Festival, local service charges and taxes.  
Trip price: $1349 (double occupancy), details below.  



The thriving arts center of Saratoga Springs and its rich cultural life is the central attraction for our weekend trip in the Adirondacks . At the Saratoga Performing Arts Center we see George Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream performed by the New York City Ballet and tour the National Museum of Dance & Hall of Fame. We enjoy an evening performance of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado at the Lake George Opera, which has launched the careers of some of this country’s leading artists. In nearby Glen Falls we tour The Hyde Collection and attend a performance at the Adirondack Theatre Festival. Along the Hudson River, we tour the astonishing Bard College Center for the Performing Arts designed by Frank Gehry and Olana, the minaret decorated home of the artist Frederick Church.






1.  Thursday, July 7     
We meet our guide and depart in the morning from a central location in midtown New York City , traveling aboard a comfortable private motor coach. Our first stop is the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, an architecturally bold and dynamic environment for innovative artistic presentation in the Hudson Valley . The Frank Gehry–designed center provides audiences with a world-class complex that inspires risk-taking performances. We have lunch and continue to Saratoga Springs where we check into the Holiday Inn, conveniently located in downtown. Amenities include a restaurant and two pools. After our welcome dinner at a local restaurant we travel to Saratoga State Park and the Spa Little Theatre to attend the Lake George Opera production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, conducted by Christopher Larkin. This is the Lake George Opera’s 39th summer season. The company boasts the country’s second oldest Apprentice Artist Program, which has launched the careers of some of this country’s leading artists.



2.  Friday, July 8     
This morning following our daily breakfast, we explore the preservation of Saratoga Springs ’ unique architectural, cultural and landscaped heritage. In its heyday in the late 19th century, Saratoga was the elegant refuge of high-society. Today Saratoga Springs is awash in splendid examples of Victorian and other diverse styles of architecture, from Queen Anne and Colonial Revival to Early Federal, Greek Revival, and English Gothic. We visit Yaddo, founded in 1900 by the financier Spencer Trask and his wife Katrina, as an artists' community in Saratoga Springs , New York . The Yaddo Gardens are part of the 400-acre estate that consists of a formal rose garden and an informal rock garden featuring turn-of-the-century fountains and statues, handsome turn-of-the-20th-century gardens and a working artists' community. Saratoga has a long and glamorous history as the home of Thoroughbred Racing, and we visit the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, containing a renowned equine art collection, stunning trophies, beautiful silks and Thoroughbred memorabilia evoking the thunder of pounding hooves and the excitement of the race.  
After lunch on your own, we travel to nearby Glen Falls to visit The Hyde Collection & Art Museum, a splendid collection of Old and Modern Masters. The collection, housed in a gorgeous renovated mansion, is reminiscent of New York City 's Frick Collection in its breadth and beautiful setting. Among the treasures assembled in the 1912, neo-Renaissance Florentine-style villa are works by Raphael, Da Vinci, Van Dyck, Tiepolo, El Greco, Reubens, Tintoretto, Homer, Whistler, Turner, Degas, Seurat, Renoir, Picasso, and Van Gogh.  
Dinner at a local restaurant in Glen Falls is included before tonight’s performance at the Adirondack Theatre Festival (schedule tba) the region's professional summer theater and a cultural gem. The festival brings some of the best writers, actors, and theater artists from New York City and around the country to present a season of live theater at the new Charles R. Wood Theater in Glens Falls . The Festival’s mission is to produce "new and contemporary" plays and musicals and we shall see some of the most promising "up and coming" artists working in the theater today. There is a post performance chat with a member of the artistic staff.  



3.  Saturday, July 9     
Today is spent at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center , the cultural hub of upstate New York and the Hudson Valley . We tour the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame, the only museum in the nation dedicated to American professional dance. The museum is l located in the former Washington Bath House, a spacious, airy 1918 Arts and Crafts-style building, in the Saratoga Spa State Park . The Museum houses a growing collection of photographs, videos, artifacts, costumes, biographies and archives comprising a contemporary and retrospective examination of seminal contributions to dance. We have lunch followed by a matinee performance of George Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, performed by the New York City Ballet, the resident summer dance company. We have our farewell dinner tonight at a local restaurant.



4.  Sunday, July 10     
We check out and travel to Olana, an architectural gem on the Hudson River . Named for a fortress treasure-house in ancient Persia , Olana was the home of Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900), one of America 's most important artists, a student of Thomas Cole, and a major figure in the Hudson River School of landscape painting. Built high on a hill near Hudson, New York between 1870 and 1891, then as now, Olana offers magnificent sweeping vistas of the Catskill Mountains, the Hudson River and the Taconic Hills. Called by Church "the Center of the World," Olana's Persian style house and 250 acres of picturesque grounds are a masterpiece as grand as any of his paintings. After lunch, we continue to our midtown stop in New York.  
 
 
 





This engaging experience includes:

  • Round-trip motor coach transportation for duration of tour program
  • 3 nights at the Holiday Inn – Saratoga Springs
  • breakfast daily, 4 lunches, 2 dinners
  • performance tickets Adirondack Theatre Festival
  • performance tickets Lake George Opera
  • admissions to Bard College Performing Arts Center
  • admissions to National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame
  • admissions to National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame
  • admissions to The Hyde Collection and Art Museum
  • admissions to Yaddo
  • admissions to Olana
  • admissions to post-ballet performance discussion
  • admissions to Post performance talk at Adirondack Theatre Festival
  • Local service charges and taxes
PROGRAM PRICES  
Per person (double occupancy) from New York:$1349  
Single Supplement:$250