Aurelia Butler

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    ‘Tosca’ Is the Boston Symphony’s Andris Nelsons at His Best

    Andris Nelsons led a concert performance of Puccini’s opera at Tanglewood. It was a high point of the season.Andris Nelsons may have become a fitful, inconsistent music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, but every once in a while, he proves that he has still got it.Such was the lesson on Saturday night at Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summer home in the Berkshires, as Nelsons and a starry cast delivered a concert “Tosca” of high intensity and even higher emotion.This Tanglewood season is a solid one, with the premiere of a new John Williams piano concerto written for Emanuel Ax on the agenda next weekend, a Gabriela Ortiz-curated Festival of Contemporary Music sprawling around the grounds at the same time, and the obligatory appearances of Yo-Yo Ma, famous friend of the orchestra, to come in August. New at Tanglewood this year: tastefully installed screens next to the Shed stage that show the musicians at work, and, by some miracle, enhanced cellphone service. Still unchanged: the humidity.But “Tosca” was always likely to be a high point of the season, and it was. Opera has often brought out the best in Nelsons in Boston, and the closer to the most commonplace parts of the repertoire the work has been, the stronger the performance from him. Wagner transfixed him as a child, and it was at the Latvian National Opera that his career began to take off in his 20s. Now 46, he rarely looks more engaged on the podium than when he is supporting a singer in full flow.And for this Puccini, Nelsons had some singers of quality to support. Bryn Terfel sang his last staged Scarpia at the Met earlier this year, but he still brings unrivaled authority and conviction to a role that has defined his career. Has the passing of time brought a more vicious edge of desperation to his portrayal, as if an older Scarpia might feel as though this is his last, appalling chance to corner his prey, causing him to act with such depravity? Either way, Terfel’s snarling chief of the Roman police remains a privilege to see.So, too, the glorious Cavaradossi of the Korean baritone-turned-tenor SeokJong Baek. Here, as at the Met last fall, his extraordinarily firm, high cries of “Vittoria!” drew instant applause, and they were far from the only point at which this colossal voice, wielded by turns with machined precision and melting sensitivity, could have earned such approval.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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    Justin Bieber’s Experimental ‘Swag’ Resurgence

    Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeEarlier this month, Justin Bieber surprise-released his seventh album, “Swag,” and it is his most idiosyncratic and musically adventurous release to date. Early in his career, he was a superstar by force, and later by will, or something like it. Now, after a few years out of the spotlight, he’s verging toward tastemaker, or at least someone who pays close attention to actual tastemakers.Midcareer artist rebrands are a dime a dozen, but in the current algorithmically-driven moment, rarely do they veer in such uncertain directions. But Bieber’s work with the guitar innovator Mk.gee, the soul provocateur Dijon, the frisky hip-hop producer Cash Cobain and more indicates a willingness to disrupt his fame a little if it means potentially making something interesting.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about Bieber’s tug of war between pop success and R&B passion; how his tabloid life influences his musical directions; and whether any artist can actually navigate the level of fame Bieber has experienced.Guest:Joe Coscarelli, New York Times pop music reporterConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. More

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    Italy Cancels Valery Gergiev’s Festival Appearance

    Some lawmakers in Italy had argued that Valery Gergiev’s planned appearance sent the wrong message as Europe strives to remain united in its support for Ukraine. A concert at a festival in Italy that was to have been the conductor Valery Gergiev’s first in Western Europe since Russia invaded Ukraine more than three years ago was canceled on Monday amid a backlash over the musician’s close ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.Antonella Giannattasio, a spokeswoman for the Un’Estate da RE festival, said in a telephone interview that Mr. Gergiev would no longer perform on July 27 at the Royal Palace of Caserta, a historic site north of Naples.Italian activists and politicians had denounced plans for Mr. Gergiev to conduct at the event. Mr. Gergiev, a staunch ally of Mr. Putin, lost all his engagements in the West when Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022.There was concern in Italy and more broadly in the European Union about Mr. Gergiev’s participation, given that the festival is bankrolled by the bloc. There were fears that his presence could be seen as an endorsement of Russia at a time when Europe is scrambling to provide weapons to Ukraine as the Trump administration’s support for Kyiv has seemed to waver.Italy’s culture minister, Alessandro Giuli, said in a statement on July 15 that allowing Mr. Gergiev to participate in the festival “risks passing the wrong message.”“Ukraine is an invaded nation, and Gergiev’s concert may turn a high-level but objectively controversial and divisive musical event into a sounding board for Russian propaganda,” Giuli added. “Which for me would be deplorable.”The planned concert also drew international condemnation. Yulia Navalnaja, the widow of the Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, wrote in a guest article for the Italian daily la Repubblica last week that Mr. Gergiev’s performance in Italy “would be a gift to the dictator.”Before the war in Ukraine, Mr. Gergiev was one of the world’s most sought-after conductors, with regular engagements at leading concert halls and opera houses. But his work in the West dried up after he declined to denounce Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. He lost numerous engagements, and the Munich Philharmonic removed him from his post as chief conductor three years before his contract had been set to expire.Mr. Putin rewarded Mr. Gergiev in 2023 by tapping him to lead the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. The move put him at the pinnacle of Russian culture, since he was already the artistic and general director of the nation’s other leading performing arts institution, the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. (In Moscow Mr. Gergiev replaced Vladimir Urin, who had been the Bolshoi’s general director since 2013 and who had signed a petition expressing opposition to the war in Ukraine.)Mr. Gergiev and Mr. Putin have known each other since the 1990s, and the maestro has supported the Russian leader in election campaigns.Elisabetta Povoledo More

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    ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Directors Discuss the Film’s Rise and Chart-Topping Soundtrack

    Maggie Kang, a director of the hit along with Chris Appelhans, was “just trying to make something that I wanted to see: a movie that celebrated Korean culture.”Ever since its release on Netflix last month, the original animated film “KPop Demon Hunters” has burned up the internet — and the charts. The musical fantasy has topped the streamer’s global rankings and inspired countless memes, dance challenges (some even by K-pop stars), themed merchandise and fan art. The film’s equally blockbuster soundtrack has stormed the music charts, with eight of its songs landing in the Billboard Hot 100.“KPop Demon Hunters” follows the members of a fictional K-pop girl group as they juggle demanding careers and fight to save the world from soul-stealing demons. The film’s directors, Maggie Kang (a veteran storyboard artist on films like “Rise of the Guardians” and “Puss in Boots” ) and Chris Appelhans (who directed “Wish Dragon”), spoke about the making of their movie and its unexpected rise as a global cultural phenomenon.Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.Maggie, the story behind “KPop Demon Hunters” was your idea. What convinced you that a film that combines disparate elements like K-pop, animation, traditional Korean art and mythology, and demons could resonate with so many different audiences?MAGGIE KANG Well, nothing did. [Laughs] I was basically just trying to make something that I wanted to see: a movie that celebrated Korean culture. And for some reason, I landed on demonology. I thought the jeoseung saja [grim reapers in Korean mythology] — which is what the boys are at the end of the movie with the black hats and the black robes — was such an iconic image from my childhood that I was very scared of, so I knew that I wanted to feature that. And the thought of demons naturally led to demon hunters. I wanted to see female superheroes that were a lot more relatable, who like to eat and make silly faces. We weren’t trying to make them just pretty, sexy and cool. They had very real insecurities and showed that.Demon hunting is usually done very secretly, so these girls needed a public-facing persona. I was also really wanting to do something K-pop-related. It was like, let’s just see if these two things can go together.“I wanted to see female superheroes that were a lot more relatable, who like to eat and make silly faces,” Kang said.NetflixWe 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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    Can Indigo De Souza Spin Pop Gold From the Wreckage of Her Past?

    Indigo De Souza and Elliott Kozel almost canceled their musical blind date.In January 2023, De Souza — a singer and songwriter who had increasingly toyed with borders around indie-rock, soul and pop — flew to Los Angeles from her home in Asheville, N.C., where she’d made her records with old friends. Now she wanted to try meeting strangers in their studios and seeing if, together, they might create a pop anthem. She was anxious, since this “blind session” would be her first. Kozel wasn’t nervous. He’d long done 60 such sessions a year. He had, however, been up late, playing songs in a small club. He was hung over.“He was very grumpy, like the world had beaten him down,” De Souza said during a recent video interview, a day after turning 28, laughing beneath the radiant-green tree canopy of a rural spread where she sometimes stays near Asheville. “He wasn’t putting on any frills. He was showing me exactly who he was. That’s what I needed.”Within an hour, Kozel had found a synthesizer sound and vocal sample De Souza loved. As the music looped, she sat down and, in 10 minutes, wrote “Not Afraid,” an existential examination of life, aging and death, of recognizing the inevitability of them all. Kozel was stunned she could explore her own mortality so readily in front of someone new, let alone sing about it.Though De Souza went to other sessions, she returned only to Kozel to write and record in his garage. With its heroic keyboards, romantic guitars and insistent rhythms, the absorbing 11-track result, “Precipice,” makes good on her longtime ambition to release a sophisticated pop album. It is a vivid and gripping reintroduction, putting her in unexpected conversation with stars like Lorde and Charli XCX.Indigo De Souza’s new album, “Precipice,” makes good on her ambition to release a sophisticated pop record.Perhaps more important, De Souza’s work and camaraderie with Kozel allowed her to write about lifelong struggles with mental illness and abusive relationships with newfound clarity and confidence.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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    Renée Fleming, Star Soprano, Tries Out the Director’s Chair

    A young soprano was rehearsing a difficult aria from Mozart’s “Così Fan Tutte” when the director stopped her and made a suggestion.“I always liked to lay down for this part,” the director said, “because it lets the body relax.”It’s not every opera director who can talk about performing choices in the first person. But on that summer afternoon in Aspen, Colo., the woman staging the scene was Renée Fleming, perhaps the most famous soprano of recent decades. Fleming was passing on a career’s worth of accumulated wisdom to a cast in which the oldest singer is 32.Among her lessons was when to say no.“Just remember, you’re going to be more nervous onstage than you are now,” Fleming said as the group worked on some aerobics-style choreography for the production, set in the early 1980s. “So maybe don’t do these jumps, because even if you can sing while you’re doing them now, you’re going to be out of breath on opening night.”Fleming is making her directing debut with this “Così,” which opens on Monday at the Wheeler Opera House as part of the Aspen Music Festival and School, one of the country’s most prestigious summer programs for rising artists.The soprano Lauren Carroll (left, with Fleming) is singing Fiordiligi, Fleming’s old role.Matthew Defeo for The New York TimesShe joins a select group of divas (and divos) turned directors. This fall, the tenor Rolando Villazón’s production of Bellini’s “La Sonnambula” comes to the Metropolitan Opera. And the mezzo Denyce Graves is staging Scott Joplin’s “Treemonisha” for Washington National Opera next year.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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    Roger Norrington, Iconoclastic British Conductor, Dies at 91

    His work, largely unknown outside Britain until late in his career, was often based on historical treatises. It was seen by many as refreshingly innovative.Roger Norrington, the English conductor who became a star of the historically informed performance movement by provocatively applying scholarly research about tempos and tone production to a broad expanse of the symphonic repertoire, from Beethoven to Mahler and even the modernist Stravinsky, died on Friday at his home outside of Exeter, England. He was 91.His death was confirmed by his friend and musical colleague Evans Mirageas, who is the artistic director of the Cincinnati Opera.Mr. Norrington was known for his brisk, lively and often audacious performances of Handel, Mozart and Haydn before he turned his attention to Beethoven and Berlioz; after that, he forged deeper into the 19th and early 20th centuries. He led both period-instrument and modern orchestras, using the same interpretive principles, and though some of his performances drew criticism for their brash iconoclasm, many listeners regarded them as insightful and refreshingly original.Lanky, bespectacled, bearded and balding, Mr. Norrington projected both affability and authority, and he loved making the case for his ideas — not only in interviews but also in seemingly off-the-cuff comments at his concerts. He often cited centuries-old treatises as well as his delight in the “pure” sound, as he put it, of strings playing without vibrato. He once famously referred to vibrato as “a modern drug.”Toward the end of his career, he preferred to conduct while seated, usually on a high swivel chair that allowed him to turn to the audience to smile conspiratorially at a light moment within the music, and even to encourage applause. He was known to tell audiences that they could applaud between the movements of a symphony or a concerto, a common practice in the 18th and 19th centuries that is frowned on today.He reveled in being provocative. In a 2021 interview with The Telegraph, he referred to his 2007 recording of Mahler’s Second Symphony as his “last hand grenade.”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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    W.N.B.A.’s All-Star Weekend Is Still Buzzing, Even Without Caitlin Clark

    The temperature had crept past 80 degrees, but on Friday afternoon, on a basketball court in the heart of downtown Indianapolis, Ava Shampo, 5, was feeling good.“I made it!” she said, smiling, after heaving an orange-and-white basketball toward a hoop that towered over her.The line of nets on Monument Circle, the traffic roundabout at the city’s center, was one of more than a dozen public events held in connection with the W.N.B.A. All-Star Game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis on Saturday night. The game was expected to feature fan favorites like Aliyah Boston of the Indiana Fever and A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces — even if the biggest name, the Fever’s Caitlin Clark, was sidelined by a right groin injury she sustained earlier in the week.The turnout for All-Star Weekend — a fervent crowd seemingly undiminished by Ms. Clark’s injury — reflected both the explosion of interest in the W.N.B.A. and the excitement around the sport in Indianapolis.Fans descended on Indianapolis for more than a dozen public events held around the city in connection with the W.N.B.A. All-Star Game.Lee Klafczynski for The New York TimesA young fan decorated her sneakers.Lee Klafczynski for The New York TimesDonna Motley of Chicago made her own outfit for the weekend.Lee Klafczynski for The New York TimesWe 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