Aurelia Butler

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    ‘Emilia Pérez’ Review: A Song and Dance of Transformation

    The star of Jacques Audiard’s showy new musical about a trans Mexican crime boss, Karla Sofía Gascón, adds soul to the melodrama. Zoe Saldaña also shines.In the floridly off-kilter “Emilia Pérez,” the director Jacques Audiard throws so much at you — gory crime-scene photos, a menacing cartel boss, a singing-and-dancing Zoe Saldaña — that you don’t dare blink, almost. Set largely in present-day Mexico City, the fast-track story follows a beleaguered lawyer, Rita (a very good Saldaña), who’s hired by a powerful drug lord, Manitas (a wonderful Karla Sofía Gascón), for an unusual job. Manitas, who presents as a man but identifies as a woman, wants help with clandestinely obtaining gender-affirming surgery and with tidying up some of the complications that come from a violent enterprise.Audiard, a French filmmaker and critical favorite with a string of impressive credits, likes changing it up. He’s partial to people and stories on the margins, though is especially drawn to crime stories; much of one of his finest films, “A Prophet,” takes place in prison. He also likes dipping in and out of genres while playing with and, at times, undermining their conventions, embracing an unorthodoxy that can extend to his characters. The protagonist in “The Beat That My Heart Skipped,” for one, is an outright thug but also a would-be concert pianist who, at one point, shows up at a recital bloodied after nearly beating another man to death.The complications in “Emilia Pérez” emerge in quick succession. After the brisk, eventful opener — featuring a murder trial, an unjust verdict and two musical numbers — Rita is being driven to a secret location by armed strangers, her head shrouded. Before long, she is seated in a truck, face to face with Manitas, a jefe with facial tattoos, a stringy curtain of hair and an ominously threatening whisper. Manitas delivers a staccato, tuneless rap that promises Rita “considerable sums of money” in exchange for her help. “I want to be a woman,” Manitas reveals sotto voce through soft lips and a mouthful of golden teeth.Rita agrees to help, though there’s little to suggest that she could deny Manitas’s request. To that end, Rita begins jetting around the world looking for a discreet, willing surgeon for Manitas, an expedition that, during one stop, finds her in a circular-shaped Bangkok clinic where she, the surgical team and gowned, bandaged patients are soon singing and striking poses. As Rita and a surgeon discuss options for Manitas, the doctor begins sing-chanting words like “mammaplasty” and “vaginoplasty” and “laryngoplasty,” which others pick up as a refrain. As bodies and the camera spin inside the clinic, Audiard cuts to an overhead shot of the facility, exuberantly tapping into his inner Busby Berkeley.The song-and-dance numbers — the score and songs are by Clément Ducol and Camille, and the choreography is by Damien Jalet — range from the intimate to the outsized, and are integrated throughout. Most seem like manifestations of private thoughts, as in an early number in which Rita voices aloud a trial argument that she’s mentally prepping while in a grocery store. When she exits into the jeweled city night, she is met by a rising rumble of voices from passers-by who are chanting “rising and falling.” As she walks on, her words shift into song, her movements become stylized, and the passers-by turn into an ensemble. Audiard then begins folding in images of Rita typing on a laptop as she sings.At first, this shift between inner and outer realities, between the ostensibly material world of contemporary Mexico and the metaphysical world of the characters, is jarring and amusing. From the start, the movie hooks you because of its abrupt turns, how it veers into places that, tonally, narratively and emotionally, you don’t expect. Yet while Audiard has productively combined classic genres and present-day sensibilities before, even the more personal, confessional numbers here add little more than novelty. It’s galvanizing when Rita belts a song — to herself, to us — about the corruption of Mexican leaders assembled at a banquet, but only because the movie is acknowledging a world that it otherwise uses as a fanciful stage.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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    Review: Lise Davidsen Meets Puccini in ‘Tosca’ at the Met

    The powerhouse soprano, already a company stalwart at 37, still seems to be figuring out a character whose moods change on a dime.Aficionados have sometimes criticized the Metropolitan Opera for waiting too long to engage singers with starry careers in Europe, like a sports team that acquires only veterans. Even the loudest complainers, though, would have to praise the Met’s early, deep investment in the powerhouse soprano Lise Davidsen, a generational talent from Norway.Davidsen, 37, made her house debut five years ago in Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades.” The title role in Puccini’s “Tosca,” which she sang on Tuesday in a gala honoring the centenary of the composer’s death, is already her seventh part with the company.With a huge, marble-cool voice that she can pull back to a veiled shadow or unleash in a floodlight cry, Davidsen has been most memorable in works by Wagner and Strauss that have broad vocal lines for her to sail through.She has embodied the mythic longing of Ariadne in Strauss’s “Ariadne auf Naxos” and brought opulent purity to Eva in Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.” Last season, venturing into Verdi with “La Forza del Destino,” she captured Leonora’s eternal woundedness.For saintly, long-suffering figures like Wagner’s Sieglinde and Elisabeth, she’s perfect. Davidsen is tall and statuesque — noble, yet modest. She’s not slow-moving onstage, but there’s something glacial about her. She seems most comfortable when she can settle into a character’s steady state for a few hours and just sing.Tosca is a different beast, and Davidsen still seems to be figuring her out. Puccini’s operas are nothing but endless, changeable business: pocketing letters, discovering keys, spying a knife. Every tiny response is illustrated in the music, and moods shift on a dime. His works require hair-trigger agility, even febrility.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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    Daniele Rustioni, Fixture at the Met Opera, Will Be Its Guest Conductor

    Beginning next fall, Rustioni will lead at least two operas each season and help provide continuity for the Met as it rebuilds after a wave of retirements.Daniele Rustioni, an Italian conductor who has become a fixture of the Metropolitan Opera in recent years, has been named its principal guest conductor, the company announced on Wednesday.When he joins the Met next season, Rustioni, 41, will be tasked with helping to bring stability and continuity to the Met Orchestra whenever the company’s music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, an ever-busy maestro, is away. The ensemble is still working to rebuild after a wave of retirements during the pandemic.“The chemistry I feel with this orchestra and chorus is quite special,” Rustioni said in an interview. “They give an incredible amount of energy, and they are always super committed.”Rustioni, who will serve an initial three-year term, will lead at least two operas each season, the Met said. He is only the third person in the company’s 141-year history to hold the title of principal guest conductor. Fabio Luisi, the last maestro to occupy the post, was hired in 2010 when the Met was grappling with the unpredictable health problems of James Levine, its former music director.Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s music director since 2018, said that he and Rustioni had shared artistic values, and that “having Daniele in this elevated role is good for the orchestra, good for the chorus and good for opera.”Under Nézet-Séguin, the Met Orchestra has worked to recover from the pandemic, filling 17 vacancies and going on high-profile tours in Europe and Asia. But critics have raised concerns about the Met Orchestra’s quality and consistency.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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    ‘Conclave’ Is Becoming One of 2024’s Most Memed Movies

    Thanks to characters we recognize from reality TV, the Vatican intrigues have jumped from stuffy prestige drama to the social-media scrum.On its surface, “Conclave,” the Vatican-set film starring Ralph Fiennes, looks like one of the stuffiest of this year’s potential Oscar contenders.Based on a novel by Robert Harris, it chronicles the behind-the-scenes dealings that unfold when the Roman Catholic Church needs to elect a new pope. The cast is mostly male — save for a showstopping turn from Isabella Rossellini — and, with some notable exceptions, largely white. It does not star any hot young things like Timothée Chalamet or Paul Mescal. Instead, it features a murderers’ row of middle-aged character actors. Purely based on subject matter, it seems like the kind of drama that might dominate the Academy Awards in the mid-2000s.And yet it’s on its way to becoming one of the most memed movies of the year.In the weeks since the film’s release, I have been shocked and delighted to find it all over my social media feeds. “Conclave” fever has hit the internet.On X, “Conclave” has been mashed up with “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “Real Housewives.” Devotees have made fan cams, or artfully edited videos, of the “Conclave” cardinals. One is set to the Charli XCX song “Sympathy Is a Knife” featuring Ariana Grande. The refrain “it’s a knife” is synced to the nasty looks the clergymen give one another. The X user Camille Argentar posted it and wrote, “so much drama in this #conclave and i loved every minute of it.”Another fan cam focuses on Ralph Fiennes’s Cardinal Lawrence and the song “Diva” by Beyoncé, implying that Lawrence is the diva here. The TikTok account @catholic.memes25 has made multiple “Conclave” videos, including one using “We Both Reached for the Gun” from the musical “Chicago.”“Sympathy Is a Knife” provided the soundtrack for one “Conclave” fan cam.Focus FeaturesWe 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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    ‘Hot Frosty’ Review: The 8 Abs of Christmas

    A hunky snowman comes to life in this Netflix holiday rom-com that strikes a certain muscle tone.Here’s the pitch for “Hot Frosty”: A widow wraps an enchanted scarf around a hunky snowman who springs to life and professes his love. Here are the two possible audience reactions: “How dumb!” and “How dumb — can’t wait to watch!”Lacey Chabert, the star of more than 30 Hallmark Channel romances, checks into work as Kathy, a generically sweet small-town diner owner with little to do besides repeat the premise until everyone is onboard. “You just buy that he’s a snowman?” she sputters to her fellow residents of Hope Springs.No matter. The director Jerry Ciccoritti knows all eyes are on Jack (Dustin Milligan), a shirtless naïf with the soul of a labradoodle and the abs of a supermodel. “I am not cold,” he insists with a twinkle. Jack adores fixing roofs, befriending children, baking homemade pizza and rubbing ice on his bare chest. Nevertheless, Kathy is slow to warm to his charms.To be fair, Jack is a tricky role. It’s hard for a male actor to play innocent and seductive. There’s one carnal gag involving a lusty neighbor (Lauren Holly), but otherwise “Hot Frosty” doesn’t stoke much sexual heat. Families can watch together with no risk of grandma getting distracted and burning a batch of cookies.The script shamelessly re-gifts scenes from “Pretty Woman” and “It’s a Wonderful Life,” along with “Edward Scissorhands,” like when Kathy’s martini-chugging pals swoon that a man this perfect has to be magic. But shameless is the goal. Everyone involved knows exactly what movie they’re making — especially Craig Robinson as the hilarious town sheriff, a killjoy determined to arrest Jack for streaking.Hot FrostyNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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    Roy Haynes, a Giant of Jazz Drumming, Is Dead at 99

    An irrepressible force who remained relevant over the course of a seven-decade career, he had a hand in every major development in modern jazz.Roy Haynes, among the greatest and most influential drummers in the history of jazz, died on Tuesday in Nassau County, N.Y., on the South Shore of Long Island. He was 99.His death, after a brief illness, was confirmed by his daughter, Leslie Haynes-Gilmore. She declined to specify where in the county he died.Mr. Haynes was an irrepressible force who proudly remained both relevant and stylish over a career spanning seven decades, having had a hand in every major development in modern jazz, beginning in the bebop era. Remarkably, he did so without significant alterations to his style, which was characterized by a bracing clarity — Snap Crackle was the nickname bestowed on him in the 1950s — along with locomotive energy and a slippery but emphatic flow.Few musicians ever worked with so broad an array of jazz legends. Mr. Haynes recorded with the quintessential swing-era tenor saxophonist Lester Young as well as the contemporary guitarist Pat Metheny. He was briefly but prominently associated with the singer Sarah Vaughan, and with some of bebop’s chief pioneers, notably the alto saxophonist Charlie Parker and the pianists Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk.And he appeared on dozens of albums, including many regarded as classics, among them Eric Dolphy’s “Outward Bound” (1960), Oliver Nelson’s “The Blues and the Abstract Truth” (1961), Stan Getz’s “Focus” (1962) and Chick Corea’s “Now He Sings, Now He Sobs” (1968).As a band leader, Mr. Haynes made a handful of highly regarded albums, like “We Three,” a 1958 trio session with the pianist Phineas Newborn Jr. and the bassist Paul Chambers.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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    6 Ambient Tracks to Transport You Someplace Else

    Listen to Gas, Hiroshi Yoshimura and Lou Reed (yes, that Lou Reed).Wolfgang Voigt performing as Gas.Chad Batka for The New York TimesDear listeners,For several reasons, I have found myself listening to a lot of ambient music this week — even more than usual, which is already a significant amount. I have a new upstairs neighbor who seems to really like high-BPM techno, so I’ve needed to ensconce myself in a more inhabitable soundscape.As I noted last year, when I shared a previous ambient playlist, I am incredibly wary of streaming culture’s emphasis on “chill-out music,” a blanket term that dulls the kaleidoscopic differences between all sorts of ambient compositions. That puts the emphasis not on the artistry of musicians but on the kind of predictable and inoffensive user experience it can offer the listener. I am also aware, though, of the genre’s very worthy history as “functional music,” to borrow a phrase from the man who more or less invented ambient music, Brian Eno. As he told me in an interview recalling his earliest forays into “discrete music,” “The emphasis was on saying, ‘Here is a space, an atmosphere, that you can enter and leave as you wish.’”I believe it is possible to have it both ways: to turn to ambient music for its “functional” purposes while also developing an appreciation for all the varied sounds, textures and subgenres that fall under that category. And so, on today’s playlist, you’ll hear some minimalist compositions, some drone and even some ambient techno, from the likes of Hiroshi Yoshimura, Gas and Lou Reed (yes, that Lou Reed). I’ve culled all six of these tracks from albums that were either released or reissued in the past year or so, just to keep things fresh.I hope that it brings you some respite from whatever ails you — be it noisy neighbors or the usual dread — and that it also compels you to seek out more.Discretely,LindsayListen along while you read.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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    The Soprano Lucy Shelton Makes Waves in Opera at 80

    Lucy Shelton, a soprano known for her work in the contemporary repertoire, has had a role tailor-made for her in “Lucidity,” an opera about identity and dementia.When the soprano Lucy Shelton opened a recital at Merkin Hall in 2019 with “Adieu à la vie,” a song by Rossini, she was about to turn 75. And though she was not bidding farewell to life as the song’s title suggests, she felt she was done with performing. For decades, she had been one of the most sought-after interpreters of contemporary vocal music. But she had reached a point where “I couldn’t sing the things that I used to sing,” she said in an interview. “And that’s depressing.”“I figured I was probably winding down,” she added. “But then I got wound up again.”On Thursday, Shelton, 80, takes center stage at the Abrons Arts Center in the world premiere of “Lucidity,” an opera about identity and dementia, composed by Laura Kaminsky, with a libretto by David Cote. With a score that calls for a multitude of expressive registers, including floated lyricism and sprechstimme, musically notated recitation, the work is tailored to Shelton’s undiminished dramatic strengths. It’s also a testament to her continuing dedication to her craft. (From New York, where the production is presented by On Site Opera, it travels to Seattle Opera.)After five decades making her name primarily on the concert scene, Shelton finds her engagement calendar increasingly filled with opera. In 2021, she performed in the critically acclaimed premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s “Innocence” in Aix-en-Provence, France. Next season, she will reprise the role at the Metropolitan Opera, making her house debut at 82. “It’s kind of a riot,” she said. “It probably thrills everybody else more than it thrills me.”Shelton performing a passage from “Lucidity,” with Eric McKeever.Ahmed Gaber for The New York TimesShelton, who has premiered over a hundred works by composers including Elliott Carter, Oliver Knussen and Gérard Grisey, is unusual in classical music, where few female singers perform past their 60s.One challenge of staged roles is memorization, which can be made harder by age. In discussing “Lucidity” with Kaminsky, she raised her concerns that she might not be able to perform the whole show from memory. In this production, she will always have either a newspaper or sheet music to hold (her character is an aging musician), so that she has all her lines at hand.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