Aurelia Butler

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    Karla Sofía Gascón, ‘Emilia Pérez’ Star, Apologizes for Posts on Muslims, George Floyd and China

    The Oscar-nominated actress, who plays a cartel leader in “Emilia Pérez,” was criticized for derogatory comments about Muslims, George Floyd and China.Karla Sofía Gascón, the star of the movie musical “Emilia Pérez” and the first openly transgender actor to be nominated for an Academy Award, apologized on Thursday after social media posts she wrote denigrating Muslims, George Floyd and China were resurfaced.“I want to acknowledge the conversation around my past social media posts that have caused hurt,” Gascón, 52, said in a statement provided by Netflix, the distributor of “Emilia Pérez.” “As someone in a marginalized community, I know this suffering all too well and I am deeply sorry to those I have caused pain. All my life I have fought for a better world. I believe light will always triumph over darkness.”In one of the posts on X, which were published in Spanish and shared in screenshots by the journalist Sarah Hagi, Gascón wrote that Islam was “becoming a hotbed of infection for humanity that urgently needs to be cured.” In another, she wrote that “the religion is INCOMPATIBLE with Western values.”Gascón also described Floyd as a “drug-addicted con artist” in a 2020 post criticizing people who were protesting his deadly arrest by police officers. Later that year, during the coronavirus pandemic, she wrote that “the Chinese vaccine, in addition to the mandatory chip, comes with two spring rolls.”She deleted her account on Friday.Gascón, who came out as a trans woman in 2016, was born in Spain and was a star of Mexican telenovelas before landing the title role in “Emilia Pérez,” in which she plays a cartel leader who goes into hiding after a gender transition. The movie leads the pack with 13 Oscar nominations, including for best picture. More

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    Jay-Z Will Seek Dismissal of Assault Lawsuit His Lawyer Calls a ‘Sham’

    The woman who accused him of raping her in 2000, when she was a minor, acknowledged to NBC that there were inconsistencies in her account, but stood by her claim.Lawyers for Jay-Z plan to ask a judge to toss a lawsuit accusing the rapper of raping a 13-year-old in 2000, pointing to what they described as “glaring inconsistencies” that emerged in an NBC interview of the accuser, who was not named in the suit.In the lawsuit, which was filed last week, the unnamed accuser said that she had been raped by Jay-Z (born Shawn Carter) and Sean Combs at a party at a private residence after the MTV Video Music Awards in Manhattan in 2000. Mr. Carter strongly denied the allegation.NBC News published an interview with the accuser on Friday evening in which she acknowledged inconsistencies in her account, but maintained that her allegation of assault was true.The woman’s lawsuit claimed that after the encounter she was picked up by her father, whom she called from a gas station. But NBC reported that her father, who would have had to drive hours from his home in upstate New York to pick up his daughter following the after-party, did not recall having done so. The father was also unnamed in the report.The plaintiff, who now lives in Alabama, also told NBC that she had spoken to the musician Benji Madden, a member of the band Good Charlotte, at the party after the awards that night. But Mr. Madden, who was not accused of any wrongdoing in her suit, was on tour in the Midwest at the time.Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Mr. Carter, wrote a letter Friday night to U.S. District Court Judge Analisa Torres saying that Mr. Carter intends to file a motion to strike the complaint, citing the NBC report. “The interview outs plaintiff’s allegations for what they are: a sham,” he wrote in the letter.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    John Eliot Gardiner’s Once and Future Orchestras Duel

    Banished from his ensembles after striking a singer, John Eliot Gardiner has assembled a new group, with the same programming at the same venue.Marten Root, a flutist specializing in historical instruments, has played under the conductor John Eliot Gardiner for over 35 years, and considers him a profoundly intelligent and honest musician.Root, 68, has also had severe enough verbal disagreements with Gardiner, 81, that he twice temporarily quit working with him. The reasons were “incidents which happen if you’re a flute player in an orchestra,” Root said in a video interview. “You’re the top of the score. You’re always in the line of fire.”Both times, he returned. Playing under Gardiner, an eminent performer of Baroque music who has recorded every single Bach cantata, was “no easy job to do,” Root said, “but basically, I decided to go back to the orchestra twice, because it’s musically more than worth it.”In August last year, Gardiner struck the singer William Thomas following a performance of the opera “Les Troyens” in France. Gardiner apologized and announced that he was temporarily withdrawing from all conducting.Now, Gardiner has returned — but not with his old organization, Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras, which didn’t want him back. Instead, Gardiner has just completed a tour with a new ensemble he founded, the Constellation Choir & Orchestra.The two groups almost collided recently, playing nearly identical concerts at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Germany, on Dec. 7 and 14. Heard so closely together, the performances offered an unusual glimpse of what’s ahead for Gardiner’s once and future ensembles. Although the concerts looked similar on paper, they sounded strikingly different.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie Give a Surprising Education in Opera

    “Paris & Nicole: The Encore,” a sequel to “The Simple Life,” is a comedic lark about creating an opera, with enlightening lessons along the way.It was a sight I certainly didn’t expect to see this year, or ever: Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie sitting down with Thomas Adès, one of the greatest living composers, to learn about opera.Adès is a longtime fan and admirer of them, he tells the camera in “Paris & Nicole: The Encore,” a sequel to “The Simple Life” now streaming on Peacock. The women come to him with a tune, which he echoes at the piano. Can he, they wonder, just write their opera?He tells them, with evasive politeness, that he’s not sure he’s the right person for the job. Before leaving, they ask him how long it takes to write an opera. One to five years, he says.They have less than a month.It’s an enlightening moment, one of many it turns out, in “Paris & Nicole,” a three-episode lark about Hilton and Richie reuniting to write an opera based on their decades of friendship. This art form, they learn with jaws dropped, isn’t easy. In fact, as the series shows in a surprisingly effective opera education, it’s unbelievably hard.Still, they are determined. Hilton and Richie, visibly mature and mostly shaking their Y2K-era ditsy personas, set out to compose an entire opera using just one word: sanasa.As fans of “The Simple Life” may remember, Hilton and Richie have often sung “sanasa, sanasa” at each other, to the tune of Elvis’s entrance music. You could generously describe it as having the nonsense of Dada yet the communicative power of a wordless Meredith Monk vocalise. They have seen the song as a vibe check, or an exclamation of joy.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Jacob Collier, Megan Moroney and Clay Aiken Issue Holiday Albums

    Our critics on Christmas records from Jacob Collier, Megan Moroney, two “American Idol” alums and more.A holiday album offers musicians a chance to adopt — or reinvent — a classic format and show fans a different side of themselves. Here’s a sampling of this year’s releases, from singers exploring the standards and artists rethinking the meaning of the holidays.Clay Aiken, ‘Christmas Bells Are Ringing’This is Clay Aiken’s second holiday album; the first arrived two decades ago, the year after he gawkily crooned his way to second place on the second season of “American Idol.” In the intervening time, he’s been on Broadway, he’s run (unsuccessfully) for political office and he’s been on “The Masked Singer.” But he never lost his voice — all these years later, Aiken still sings with a lovely flutter, and with real punch, too. His first holiday collection, “Merry Christmas With Love,” was overflowing with earned pomp — a singer who excelled at targeted bombast given free melodramatic reign. His new one, a covers collection, is a touch more polished, though he does convey true mischief on “Magic Moments” and, on “Do You Hear What I Hear,” accesses the kind of pyrotechnic fifth gear that’s the stuff of “Idol” finales, musical theater blockbusters and Christmas morning celebrations. JON CARAMANICACarpenters, ‘Christmas Once More’The Carpenters’ 1978 holiday release “Christmas Portrait” is not only one of the most enduringly enjoyable Yuletide pop albums of its era, it’s also one of the most ambitious works that Richard Carpenter ever arranged: a grandly orchestrated, elegantly realized suite that weaves together an extended medley of Christmas favorites as though they were a single song. That fluidity is preserved on the new collection, “Christmas Once More,” even though it’s a compilation that features remixed and remastered material culled from both “Christmas Portrait” and its slightly inferior though still lovely 1984 sequel, “An Old-Fashioned Christmas.” These 16 tracks represent most of the highlights from each release, including a festive take on “(There’s No Place Like) Home for the Holidays” and a rerecording of the Carpenters’ own 1970 holiday hit “Merry Christmas, Darling,” featuring accompaniment from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Streamlining the best material from the two previous LPs eliminates some of the compositional pomp that occasionally distracted from the warm, down-to-earth intimacy of Karen Carpenter’s voice, and the finely executed new mix gives it an added gleam. LINDSAY ZOLADZJacob Collier, ‘Three Christmas Songs (An Abbey Road Live-to-Vinyl Cut)’Earlier this year the multitalented polymath Jacob Collier recorded a continuous, 14-minute set of three Christmas classics live at London’s Abbey Road Studios. He uses his piano, guitar and voice all in a similarly searching manner, leaping along scales and octaves with a daredevil’s flair. That approach works best here on piano, particularly during a spellbinding deconstruction of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” enlivened by its twinkling cascade of high notes. Collier’s voice is more of an acquired taste than his piano playing, and despite his impressive range, his showy runs can overly complicate the emotions meant to be translated through these songs. Regardless, though, this recording captures a skillfully executed performance and ends with one of its most enchanting moments, as Collier conducts a choir — its members just happened to be sitting in the audience — in a beautifully understated “Silent Night.” ZOLADZDean & Britta & Sonic Boom, ‘A Peace of Us’“A Peace of Us” brings indie-rock introspection to seasonal sentiments. Dean Wareham, from Galaxie 500 and Luna, and his longtime duo partner and wife, Britta Phillips, collaborated with Sonic Boom, from Spacemen 3, on mostly lesser-known Christmas songs, from John Barry and Hal David, David Berman, Randy Newman, Merle Haggard, Boudleaux Bryant and Willie Nelson, whose “Pretty Paper” is remade as whispery, pulsing electro-pop. The songs play up the mundane aspects of the holiday, and the tone is hushed and hazily retro, with subdued vocals and reverbed guitars alongside the sleigh bells. Even the Lennon-Ono standard, “Happy Xmas (War Is Over),” drifts away instead of building up. JON PARELESBen Folds, ‘Sleigher’Christmas would seem to present a prime topic for Ben Folds, whose piano virtuosity, keen eye and skeptical but ultimately kindly spirit can turn domestic moments into show tunes waiting for a show. “Sleigher” has one standout: “Christmas Time Rhyme,” a song about the annual family reunion where “We arrive half alive from the last weird trip around the sun.” It’s a jazzy waltz that juggles childhood memories and grown-up insights. The rest of the album — including songs from the Mills Brothers and Mel Tormé — struggles to match it. PARELESWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Zakir Hussain, Peerless Indian Tabla Player, Dies at 73

    Considered a national treasure in his homeland, the percussionist transcended genres and brought classical Indian music to a global audience.Zakir Hussain, a peerless Indian tabla player who transcended genres and brought classical Indian music to a global audience, died on Sunday. He was 73.He died of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic lung disease, in San Francisco, where he lived, his family said in a statement.Considered a national treasure in his native India, Mr. Hussain won four Grammy Awards and collaborated with a range of superstar artists that included the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the jazz master Charles Lloyd, the sitarist Ravi Shankar and George Harrison of the Beatles.He was born Zakir Allaraka Qureshi on March 9, 1951, in Bombay, now Mumbai. His father was the tabla master Alla Rakha Qureshi, better known as Alla Rakha or sometimes Allarakha. Zakir’s mother, Bavi Begum, changed his surname to Hussain a few days after he was born, on the advice of a Muslim saint, he said.Mr. Hussain was a child prodigy who began performing concerts on the tabla by age 7 and was touring by age 12, according to the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts, which gave him a fellowship.Both father and son were given the honorific Ustad, which means master. Together, they helped elevate the status of the tabla, a pair of Indian drums played by hand, from an accompanying instrument to one played by virtuosos. In 2009, Zakir Hussain performed four sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York.Earlier this year, he won Grammy Awards for contemporary instrumental album, global music album and global music performance. In 2009, he won the best contemporary world music album award.Mr. Hussain is survived by his wife, Antonia Minnecola; his daughters, Anisa Qureshi and Isabella Qureshi; his brothers, Taufiq Qureshi, and Fazal Qureshi, also tabla players; and his sister, Khurshid Aulia, according to his family.A complete obituary will follow.Alexandra E. Petri More

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    When ‘The Lord of the Rings’ Gets the Anime Treatment

    “The War of the Rohirrim” is the latest and most high-profile anime adaptation of a Western franchise to hit screens big and small.When Warner Bros. approached the filmmaker Peter Jackson and his longtime screenwriting partner Philippa Boyens about making a new animated “Lord of the Rings,” Boyens at first had a hard time wrapping her head around the notion. But when studio executives suggested that the film could be told via Japanese anime — suddenly it clicked.They could tell a stand-alone story from J.R.R. Tolkien’s appendices about the people of the kingdom of Rohan, which has now become “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim,” directed by Kenji Kamiyama. Jackson is one of the film’s executive producers and Boyens one of its producers.“It was that moment of form meeting the story,” Boyens said in a video call. She said she thought anime would be an appealing approach because “it’s a story that ultimately deals with the wreckage of war, and that’s something that Japanese storytelling on film has been really good at telling.”“The War of the Rohirrim” (in theaters) is the latest and most high profile anime adaptation of a Western franchise to hit screens big and small. In recent years there’s been “Scott Pilgrim Takes Off” on Netflix, an anime version of the 2010 movie “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World”; a “Rick and Morty: The Anime” for Adult Swim; and “Terminator Zero,” a show set in James Cameron’s “Terminator” universe, also on Netflix. Kamiyama also made an installment of “Star Wars: Visions,” a 2021 anime anthology featuring a galaxy far, far away on Disney+, as well as “Blade Runner: Black Lotus,” a co-production of Adult Swim and the anime streaming service Crunchyroll.BenDavid Grabinski, one of the creators of “Scott Pilgrim Takes Off,” said in an interview that he sought to tap into some of the artistry of anime that “can feel fresh and different than a lot of the traditional animation coming out of the west.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Home Alone’ Star Macaulay Culkin Delights Fans With Nostalgic Screening and Q&A

    In Chicago, where the suburbs served as locations, a showing of the film featured an appearance by the star. Delighted fans made their devotion known.It has been 34 years since Kevin McAllister paint-canned two sour-faced bandits in “Home Alone.” And every Christmas since, fans have taken self-made tours of suburban Chicago sites in the classic holiday movie, which finds 8-year-old Kevin defending himself against robbers after his family leaves for a vacation without him. The stately residence where exteriors were shot in Winnetka, Ill., is the area’s top tourist attraction, with thousands of visitors annually.This year, Macaulay Culkin, who played Kevin and became a 10-year-old international superstar as a result, created his own multicity tour, holding screenings of the comedy followed by a Q&A. Billed as “A Nostalgic Night With Macaulay Culkin,” it played last week in Rosemont, Ill., just outside Chicago, and that proved a big draw for “Home Alone” stans.They flocked to the Rosemont Theater in T-shirts quoting John Hughes’s script — “Keep the change, ya filthy animal!” — and roared at the burns and pratfalls of the bumbling thieves (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern). Parents toted fleece blankets and stuffies for past-bedtime children; many were watching the movie, directed by Chris Columbus, on the big screen for the first time.The appeal was intergenerational and uncomplicated. “It feels like growing up,” said Monti Smith, 26, a mega-fan from Nashville.The SettingFans have been flocking to the house where the film’s exteriors were shot ever since “Home Alone” was released. Lyndon French for The New York TimesThe five bedroom, 9,126-square-foot brick home at 671 Lincoln Ave. in Winnetka has been a Mecca for movie buffs — and real estate agents. Its sale listing, for more than $5 million, went viral this year. (After a week on the market, the house found a buyer.) When a car pulled into the gated driveway last Friday, the driver paid no mind to the steady stream of onlookers or the traffic stopping for selfie-takers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More