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    Andrew Davis, 80, Dies; Renowned Conductor Who Championed Britain’s Music

    Celebrated for his long tenure with Lyric Opera of Chicago, he led this and other orchestras with force and a notably energetic podium presence.Andrew Davis, an ebullient British conductor who brought energy to his countrymen’s compositions and passion to hundreds of opera performances, died on April 20 in Chicago. He was 80.His manager, Jonathan Brill, said the cause of Mr. Davis’s death, in a hospital, was leukemia.More than many conductors, Mr. Davis was remembered by those who worked with him as deriving a sense of physical enjoyment from the music — “almost a palpable pleasure,” the pianist Emanuel Ax said in an interview. And that translated into a pleasure for his collaborators. “People loved playing for him,” Mr. Ax said.Mr. Davis spent 21 years, from 2000 to 2021, as music director and principal conductor of one of America’s great opera companies, Lyric Opera of Chicago, in a vast repertoire ranging from Mozart through Wagner to Berg. He also led orchestras in Canada — the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, from 1975 to 1988 — and Australia — the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, from 2013 to 2019. He also conducted at the Glyndebourne Festival in England from 1988 to 2000.But it was as an interpreter of 20th-century British music, and particularly the works of Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Delius, Holst, Britten and others, that Mr. Davis made his mark and earned his way into the affections of his fellow Britons. With its fervid, billowing patriotism and ruminative pastoral interludes, this music sometimes struggles to cross national boundaries.Mr. Davis conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1995. He was the orchestra’s principal conductor for a decade.Robbie Jack/Corbis, via Getty ImagesMr. Davis, as principal conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1989 to 2000 and at summer London Proms concerts in front of enthusiastic audiences of thousands in the Royal Albert Hall, made the most of the British compositions that were his specialty. This deep homegrown commitment led The New York Times’s Bernard Holland, reviewing a 1987 Avery Fisher Hall appearance by Mr. Davis that included little-known works by Arnold Bax and Michael Tippett, to write that “the music of 20th-century Britain has hugely profited from the fervent ministrations of British musicians and the British musical press.”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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    NY Party Fashion: Jon Bon Jovi Screening and Dudamel at Philharmonic Gala

    This week, fans turned out for a new documentary about Jon Bon Jovi and took in a performance led by Gustavo Dudamel at the New York Philharmonic’s spring gala.Out & About is a column that covers the events where notable, powerful and influential figures gather — and their outfits. This week: We attended a screening of “Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story” and the New York Philharmonic’s spring gala.A Rocker Greets His FansJon Bon Jovi stood blinking, rubbing his eyes, temporarily blinded on Thursday night by the lights from a row of photographers.Recovering, the musician said, “OK, I’m here now,” and then “Hi, love,” his eyes wide as he flashed a very white smile.He was standing just inside a movie theater at the South Street Seaport for a special screening of a new documentary series, “Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story.” He approached the event, hosted by the Cinema Society and Hulu, with the same charming grit that helped make him famous.The show, now on Hulu, traces the musician’s path from his teenage years playing covers in Asbury Park, N.J., to mega-stardom with his band Bon Jovi, packing arenas with rock anthems. It also touches on his recent vocal cord trouble that led to surgery.“I’m wonderful,” said Bon Jovi, 62, dressed in a leather jacket and jeans, with a full, feathery head of gray hair. “What you see in the film was a year and two years ago. It’s a work in progress. But it is really far down the road of recovery at this point.”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 Interview’ Podcast: Anne Hathaway

    This is the debut of The Interview, The New York Times’s new weekly series, featuring in-depth conversations with fascinating people. Each week, David Marchese or Lulu Garcia-Navarro will speak with notable figures in the worlds of culture, politics, business, sports, wellness and beyond. Like the Magazine’s former Talk column, the conversations will appear online and in print, but now you can also listen to them in our new weekly podcast, “The Interview,” which is available wherever you get your podcasts. Below, you’ll find David’s first interview with the actress Anne Hathaway; Lulu’s first interview, with the Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, is here.Listen to the conversation with Anne HathawayOn the debut of ’The Interview,’ the actress talks to David Marchese about learning to let go of other people’s opinions.On one level, Anne Hathaway’s new movie, “The Idea of You,” which arrives on Prime Video on May 2 and is directed by Michael Showalter, couldn’t be more straightforward. It’s an adaptation of Robinne Lee’s hit romance novel about Solène, a divorced 40-year-old mom played by Hathaway, who winds up in a relationship with a much younger man — a singer in a boy band, played by Nicholas Galitzine. Warmhearted and with unabashed mainstream appeal, the film is a return for the New Jersey-raised actress, who has fruitfully spent much of her time lately playing thornier characters in indie films, to the kinds of charming fish-out-of-water tales that first helped bring her to stardom, like “The Princess Diaries” and “The Devil Wears Prada.” This time, though, instead of being the plucky ingénue thrust into a glamorous, high-pressure situation, Hathaway is playing a character who’s coming into a new world a little less starry-eyed, and with a firmer sense of self.But “The Idea of You” also works on another, more complicated, even self-referential level. It’s a movie about a woman pushing against societal expectations and getting a lot of grief for it, which is something Hathaway, 41, knows about. More than a decade ago, around the time she won an Academy Award for her work in “Les Misérables,” the online commentariat turned on Hathaway for … who knows, exactly? Some strange groupthink kicked in that caused people to pile on her for seeming like an inauthentic striver — or something. Other than as a case study in the inexplicable and random cruelty of the internet, the whole phenomenon, described at the time as Hathahate, makes even less sense now than it did then.Since that time, Hathaway told me when we talked twice last month, she has been learning to let go of other people’s opinions and expectations of her as an actress, a celebrity and a human being. This has made her work even more compelling to watch and made her more guarded as a public figure. “I really like expressing myself through my work,” says Hathaway, who after so many years and so many great performances is still figuring out the best way to play the puzzling real-life part of a famous actress.There are a bunch of things that are intriguing to me about the new movie. One of them is that there are a few of what I took to be Anne Hathaway psychological Easter eggs sprinkled throughout the film. I’ll get to those, but first: You haven’t done a romance in a while. Can you talk to me about why you wanted to do “The Idea of You”? It’s such a softball question, and I can feel my brain complicating it. More

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    Voice of Baceprot Wins Fans With Songs of Girl Power

    Voice of Baceprot has electrified audiences and built a large following in Indonesia. Now the group is taking its music to the West.The drummer crashed her cymbals. The bass player clawed at her guitar. The crowd raised index and pinkie fingers in approval. The lead singer and guitarist stepped up to the mic and screamed: “Our body is not public property!” And dozens of fans threw themselves into a frenzy for the hijab-wearing heavy metal trio.“We have no place for the sexist mind,” the lead singer, Firda Kurnia, shrieked into the mic, singing the chorus of one of the band’s hit songs, “(Not) Public Property,” during a December performance in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital.Nearly a decade after first emerging, Voice of Baceprot (pronounced bachey-PROT, meaning “noise” in Sundanese, one of the main languages spoken in Indonesia) has earned a large domestic following with songs that focus on progressive themes like female empowerment, pacifism and environmental preservation.Now it is also winning fans overseas. It’s been praised by the likes of Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine. In the past year, the band — whose lyrics mix English, Indonesian and Sundanese — has played in the United States, France and the Netherlands.At the Jakarta gig, Ms. Firda, 23, who goes by Marsya, told the crowd that the band was “a little sad and angry to hear that someone here was a victim of catcalling.”“Anyone who does something like that, catcall or touch other people’s bodies without consent, those are the worst forms of crime,” she said. “Therefore, we can’t wait to curse this person through the following song.” And then the band played “PMS,” whose chorus is in Indonesian:“Although I am not as virgin as Virgin Mary/I am not your rotten brain servant/Although I am not as virgin as Virgin Mary/I am free, completely free.” More

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    Britney Spears and Her Father Settle Legal Dispute Over Conservatorship

    Terms were not disclosed. The parties had been arguing over the payment of legal fees and James P. Spears’s financial oversight as his daughter’s conservator.More than two years after a judge ended the conservatorship that had given James P. Spears control of his pop star daughter’s life, Britney Spears and her father have settled their outstanding legal dispute over the payment of his legal fees and his management of her finances.The terms of the settlement were not disclosed in court filings made by both parties in Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday. But the two sides had been at odds over the size of Mr. Spears’s legal fees and questions about his oversight of her money as conservator.Ms. Spears’s 13-year-long conservatorship, which began in 2008 after a series of public breakdowns, was terminated in 2021. Her father, who served as one of her conservators for its duration, had been seeking court approval for more than $2 million in fees to multiple law firms he had hired in that capacity. He had also sought payment of his current lawyer’s ongoing legal bill.Ms. Spears’s lawyer, Mathew S. Rosengart, had objected to the fees.Mr. Rosengart argued that, in particular, his client should not have to pay her father’s current legal bills, asserting in court papers that Mr. Spears had paid himself $6 million, improperly surveilled his daughter and engaged in financial misconduct during his tenure.Mr. Spears has denied any wrongdoing. He held control over both Ms. Spears’s financial and personal affairs until September 2019, when he resigned as her personal conservator citing health issues, and was replaced by Jodi Montgomery, a professional in the field. A lawyer, Andrew M. Wallet, served as a co-conservator of her estate until he resigned in 2019.Alex M. Weingarten, a lawyer for Mr. Spears, said he could not discuss the terms of the settlement because they are confidential but he agreed that the parties had resolved all outstanding issues. One of the filings stated that his client “is fully and finally discharged as Former Conservator of the Estate.”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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    Taylor Swift: The ‘Tortured’ Mailbag

    Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music“The Tortured Poets Department,” the new album from Taylor Swift, will have the biggest opening week of any album this year. Critical reaction to the release has been mixed, but fan interest has remained extremely high. And questions about Swift’s music and motivations abound.On this week’s Popcast, a listener mailbag episode full of questions prompted by Swift’s latest turns, includingHow does “TTPD” mark the return to an earlier, far more personal version of Swift’s music?What are the pros and cons of turning “TTPD” into a sudden double album?To what degree is Swift in dialogue with the leading indie-rock songwriters of the day?How does Swift engage with criticism, and with fans who lash out on her behalf?Could it be, despite the decidedly mixed response, that this album is Swift’s best?Will Swift ever voluntarily step away from the spotlight?Guests:Caryn Ganz, The New York Times’s pop music editorTom Breihan, senior editor at StereogumConnect 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. More

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    St. Vincent’s 10 (or, Actually 11) Essential Songs

    Sample her seven daring and eclectic albums as her latest, “All Born Screaming,” arrives.OK McCausland for The New York TimesDear listeners,One afternoon in late February, my editor Caryn asked if I might be interested in profiling St. Vincent ahead of her new album “All Born Screaming.” I said that I probably wasn’t — though I have long been a fan, my early spring schedule was quite full and the reporting would require a short-notice trip to Los Angeles — but that I would give the album a spin on the way home from work, just to see if it would change my mind. By the fourth track, I was searching flights to L.A.I’m so glad I took that assignment. Annie Clark (St. Vincent’s real name) was generous with her time and her explanations of her creative process, and I came away with a new appreciation of her work ethic. An accomplished songwriter, guitarist and producer, Clark is palpably fascinated by sound and how it is created, and it was revealing to see the way her eyes lit up when she was in the studio, surrounded by various mics and vintage consoles. At one point, when we were discussing some aspect of engineering, she stopped herself, remembering that this was an interview, and said, “That stuff’s kind of boring to a reader.” But I encouraged her to go on, because I could tell it was incredibly interesting to her, and I hoped that it would be illuminating for listeners to learn exactly what made Clark geek out. Even if those things are mic shootouts, modular synthesizers and the mechanics of signal flow.We also discussed the long, improbable arc of her career, during which she’s gone from a coy indie darling to a mainstream-adjacent provocateur. “I’m curious, so I’ll say yes to things that are like, ‘I don’t know if I can do that,’ or, ‘I don’t know what this kind of music is like, let me find out,’” Clark told me. “So all those things have led me to crazy places that I’ve never expected.”Today’s playlist is a map of some of those unexpected places: a collection of my 11 favorite St. Vincent songs, spread across her seven daring and eclectic albums, and featuring a few quotes from my interviews with Clark that did not make it into the profile. You’ll find tracks from her incomparable 2011 release “Strange Mercy,” her boldly slick 2017 LP “Masseduction” and more. I almost settled for 10 songs, but in classic Amplifier fashion, I added one more at the last minute. To make me choose between “Prince Johnny” and “Happy Birthday, Johnny” would have been cru-u-uellll.Seeing double beats not seeing one of you,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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    An Unearthed Johnny Cash Recording, and 11 More New Songs

    Hear tracks by Normani, Nilüfer Yanya, Thom Yorke and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Johnny Cash, ‘Well Alright’Johnny Cash wasn’t always the stoic Man in Black. He also had a droll side, as revealed in this song reconstituted from demos he recorded in 1993; a latter-day band, including Marty Stuart on guitar, now fills out the original tracks. In “Well Alright,” previewing “Songwriter,” an album due June 28, Cash is deadpan and droll, singing about a liaison that starts at a laundromat. Even the Man in Black had clothes to wash. JON PARELESNilüfer Yanya, ‘Like I Say (I Runaway)’“I run away, ’cause I’m on precious time,” the British musician Nilüfer Yanya sings on the first single she’s released since her excellent 2022 album “Painless.” In classic Yanya fashion, “Like I Say (I Runaway)” has an almost collagelike feel, reveling in contrasting textures and suddenly erupting into a blaze of guitar distortion on the chorus. “The minute I’m not in control, I’m tearing up inside,” Yanya sings, as her own sonic universe bends to her will. LINDSAY ZOLADZNormani featuring Gunna, ‘1:59’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