Aurelia Butler

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    Jane’s Addiction Members Sue One Another After Onstage Fight

    The rock band’s singer confronted its guitarist during a show last year, leading to the cancellation of its reunion tour.Members of the rock band Jane’s Addiction are suing one another after an onstage physical altercation led to the cancellation of the remainder of last year’s reunion tour.Jane’s Addiction, which formed in 1985 and is perhaps best known for the MTV hit “Been Caught Stealing,” was performing in Boston when the singer Perry Farrell confronted the guitarist Dave Navarro. A video showed Mr. Farrell slamming his shoulder into Mr. Navarro and appearing to throw a punch before he was physically restrained.The encounter in September abruptly ended the first tour by the band’s original members in 14 years. The fallout continued on Wednesday when they filed dueling lawsuits in Los Angeles Superior Court.Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins — the band’s bassist and drummer — joined Mr. Navarro in a lawsuit accusing Mr. Farrell of assault, battery, emotional distress, negligence, breach of fiduciary duty and breach of contract. Mr. Farrell and his wife, Etty Lau Farrell, responded with a complaint against the men that alleges assault, emotional distress and breach of contract.Christopher Frost, a lawyer for Mr. Navarro, Mr. Avery and Mr. Perkins, said in a statement that Mr. Farrell’s actions left the rest of the band on the hook for an unfulfilled tour and record deal. “They have been wronged, want the accurate story told and they deserve a resolution,” he said.Mr. Farrell’s legal team said in a statement that the band’s lawsuit was a clear example of its desire to isolate and bully him. “It’s a transparent attempt to control the narrative and present themselves as the so-called ‘good guys’ — a move that’s both typical and predictable,” the statement said.The lawsuit led by Mr. Navarro said the band had suffered a “swift and painful death at the hands of Farrell’s unprovoked anger and complete lack of self-control.” It also claimed that Mr. Farrell’s behavior failed to meet the band’s standards.“Perry forgot lyrics, lost his place in songs he had sung since the 1980s and mumbled rants as he drank from a wine bottle onstage,” the lawsuit said.After the onstage fight last year, the band canceled the 15 remaining dates of its North American tour. Mr. Navarro said on social media that “the mental health difficulties of our singer” were to blame, while Mr. Farrell apologized to his bandmates, saying that his “breaking point resulted in inexcusable behavior.”Mr. Farrell offered more details in his lawsuit, saying that his bandmates had participated in a yearslong “bullying campaign” against him that included harassing him onstage.During performances, the lawsuit said, his bandmates would try to undermine him by playing their instruments so loudly that he could not hear himself sing. More

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    A New Era at the Berlin State Opera Begins With Strauss

    Christian Thielemann’s inaugural new production as the general music director of the Berlin State Opera is the rarity “Die Schweigsame Frau.”Richard Strauss’s opera “Die Schweigsame Frau,” or “The Silent Woman,” was already a relic from a disappearing world by the time it was first performed.In this rarely seen work from 1935, an old man longs for company but is enraged by bustle and noise. When a beloved nephew reveals that he has taken up with a troupe of performers, the man, Sir Morosus, disinherits him and vows to marry. The nephew, Henry, responds with an elaborate prank, tricking Morosus into a fake wedding.The ostensible lesson: There is no such thing as a quiet wife.Despite feminist progress at the time, the opera reprised stereotypes about women as nags; in a period of musical experimentation, it worked largely within traditional idioms. And it made withdrawal seem noble when engagement was urgent.A year before the opera opened, its librettist, the eminent Jewish author Stefan Zweig, fled his home in Austria for London. After the premiere, it was quickly banned by the Nazi Party; Strauss was forced out of his post as president of the Reich Music Chamber even though he wrote an ingratiating letter to Hitler.“Perhaps it sparkles too much with soul and wit for today’s world,” Strauss wrote about the opera in a letter. “But there is still the 21st century!”Indeed. On Saturday, a new production of “Die Schweigsame Frau” will open at the Berlin State Opera. The event will be a first three times over: the first performance of the piece at the house, where Strauss worked regularly for 20 years and led over a thousand performances; the first new production overseen by Christian Thielemann as the company’s general music director; and Thielemann’s first time leading the opera after conducting most of Strauss’s other stage works.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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    Connie Francis, Whose Ballads Dominated ’60s Pop Music, Dies at 87

    Ms. Francis, who had a natural way with a wide variety of material, ruled the charts with songs like “Who’s Sorry Now” and “Don’t Break the Heart That Loves You.”Connie Francis, who dominated the pop charts in the late 1950s and early ’60s with sobbing ballads like “Who’s Sorry Now?” and “Don’t Break the Heart That Loves You,” as well as up-tempo soft-rock tunes like “Stupid Cupid,” “Lipstick on Your Collar” and “Vacation,” died on Wednesday. She was 87.Her publicist, Ron Roberts, announced her death in a post on Facebook. He did not say where she died or cite a cause.Petite and pretty, Ms. Francis had an easy, fluid vocal style, a powerful set of lungs and a natural way with a wide variety of material: old standards, rock ‘n’ roll, country and western, and popular songs in Italian, Yiddish, Swedish and a dozen other languages.Between 1958 and 1964, when her brand of pop music began to fall out of favor, Ms. Francis was the most popular female singer in the United States, selling 40 million records. Her 35 Top-40 hits during that period included 16 songs in the top 10, and three No. 1 hits: “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool,” “My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own” and “Don’t Break the Heart That Loves You.”She was best known for the pulsing, emotional delivery that coaxed every last teardrop from slow ballads like “Who’s Sorry Now?”, and made “Where the Boys Are” a potent anthem of teenage longing. Sighing youngsters thrilled to every throb in “My Happiness” and “Among My Souvenirs.”“What struck me was the purity of the voice, the emotion, the perfect pitch and intonation,” said Neil Sedaka, who wrote “Stupid Cupid” and “Where the Boys Are” with Howard Greenfield. “It was clear, concise, beautiful. When she sang ballads, they just soared.”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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    Tomorrowland Music Festival Is Still On After Blaze Wrecks Main Stage

    Organizers of the major electronic festival in Belgium said it would continue as planned despite the destruction of its focal point.Thick smoke rose from Tomorrowland’s main stage in Boom, Belgium, on Wednesday.Morgan Hermans, via ReutersA fire on Wednesday evening destroyed the elaborate main stage at Tomorrowland, a major electronic music festival scheduled to begin on Friday in Belgium.Nobody was injured in the fire, organizers said. They did not identify its cause.“The Orbyz Mainstage of Tomorrowland Belgium 2025, a creation born from pure passion, imagination, and dedication, is no more,” the festival said on its website on Thursday morning. “It’s impossible to put into words what we’re feeling.”Other areas and stages of the festival grounds were unaffected and the festival will go on as planned, organizers said.As of Thursday morning, the fire had been extinguished and firefighters had left the festival site, according to Brandweerzone Rivierenland, the local fire department.The fire department said it received a call about a fire around 6 p.m. local time on Wednesday. Around three hours later, the fire was under control, but firefighters stayed through the night to put out flare-ups.The main stage was destroyed by fire a day before the opening of the festival.Belga, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe fire left ticket holders disappointed. “The main stage is what gives the festival its atmosphere and is what makes it so special,” said Jules Adam, 28, who went to Tomorrowland last year and is planning to be there again on Friday.The elaborate main stage, which is different every year, is a highlight of the festival grounds. This year, Tomorrowland’s theme is Orbyz, “a magical universe made entirely out of ice.”“This wasn’t just a stage. It was a living, breathing world,” the festival’s organizers said in a statement. “From the very first sketch on a blank page, to countless hours of conceptual design, artistic collaboration, engineering, crafting, building, every single piece of Orbyz carried part of our soul.”The elaborate stage included fireworks, which were set off by the fire, according to the fire department. Video recorded Wednesday showed fireworks exploding above the stage within billowing plumes of smoke.Tomorrowland, which is held in Boom, a town south of Antwerp, attracts more than 400,000 people every year, along with some of the biggest names in electronic dance music. The 2025 edition was scheduled to run over the next two weekends. Stjepan Grgic, 33, traveled from London with his fiancé to attend the festival, together with two friends who came over from Australia. “The main event is the main stage,” he said. “It’s a massive loss.”The campground opened on Thursday morning for attendees as planned, organizers said. They said they were working on a solution for the loss of the main stage.Performances on the main stage were scheduled to start on Friday. David Guetta, Swedish House Mafia and Steve Aoki are among the artists scheduled to play.“It’s such a shame for the people who worked on it,” said Mr. Adam, the attendee, who lives about an hour’s drive from the festival in the south of the Netherlands. “I’m glad it happened before the festival and not during the festival,” he said. “Then things would be much worse.” More

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    ‘No Sleep Till’ Review: Calm Before the Storm

    This gauzy film builds an impression of Floridian malaise by trailing four locals the day before a hurricane.The naturalistic mood piece “No Sleep Till” captures a calm before a storm — specifically, the days before a hurricane is forecast to strike the coastal hamlet of Atlantic Beach, Fla.The film opens with a newscaster warning of the impending weather. The first-time writer-director, Alexandra Simpson, then follows four young locals — two stand-up comics on a road trip (Jordan Coley and Xavier Brown-Sanders), a teenager with a crush (Brynne Hofbauer) and a storm chaser living in his truck (Taylor Benton) — as they ignore the evacuation order and fritter away the hours before the hurricane hits.Eschewing traditional narrative, Simpson uses gauzy imagery to build an impression of Floridian malaise. Skateboarders land tricks on a concrete halfpipe. A motel guest wades into a pool illuminated by neon signage. A teenager slogs through a shift at a souvenir shop.As the storm grows nearer, the scenes take on an eerie feeling of liminality. In one weighted sequence, housing developers inspect a newly constructed residence. Simpson lingers on the wooden rafters, signaling at the irony of unchecked urban sprawl as climate disaster looms.“No Sleep Till” is an understated — and somewhat sleepy — film. Its mood of boredom tinged with dread sometimes verges on outright listlessness. It helps that Simpson uses a cast of first-time actors almost entirely from the area: When Mike (Brown-Sanders) punctures the film’s observational mode to articulate one of its themes — that he appreciates the hurricane because it gives him “an excuse to do something” — the sentiment feels organic.No Sleep TillNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Life After’ Review: What the End Means

    The filmmaker Reid Davenport raises thorny questions about how the option of medically assisted death is presented to disabled people.Near the end of his feature debut, the self-shot “I Didn’t See You There” (2022), the director Reid Davenport expresses a wish: “I hope this is my last personal film,” he says. But “Life After,” his new documentary, couldn’t be anything but.Davenport starts with a hook: What happened to Elizabeth Bouvia, who, beginning in 1983, was the subject of a highly publicized legal battle in California? Bouvia, who had cerebral palsy, as Davenport does, had sought to starve herself to death with medical supervision — something the courts initially did not allow.Forty years later, Davenport can find no record of her death. Is she still alive? Has her perspective changed? His investigation is fueled in part by parallels he sees in his life. When he and his producer, Colleen Cassingham, locate Bouvia’s sisters, they learn that her trajectory was more complicated than the news media’s framing revealed.But “Life After” also dives into broader questions about the legalization of medical assistance in death. The director makes clear that he does not oppose that choice, but he is concerned that messages of rejection from society and the economics of long-term care might push disabled people toward that end. He casts a particularly harsh spotlight on Canada’s commercialization of this issue. (“Don’t miss out on your chance to have an assisted death,” says a video that he and Cassingham watch that urges viewers to make arrangements early.) Davenport, upon learning he would qualify for assisted suicide if he lived in Canada, wonders if he would see his life differently if he didn’t have such positive support from family and friends. He has felt alienated at times, but so have many people, yet only those with disabilities are subtly encouraged to consider a state-sanctioned demise.“Life After” doesn’t equivocate; neither does it offer easy answers. It tackles a thorny topic in a challenging way, with the tenderness, complexity and — notwithstanding Davenport’s earlier wish — the personal perspective it deserves.Life AfterNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Unicorns’ Review: Where Glitter Meets Grit

    This movie, directed by Sally El Hosaini and James Krishna Floyd, follows Luke and Aysha, who meet by chance at a drag event.When Luke (Ben Hardy), a single dad in “Unicorns,” meets Aysha (Jason Patel), a drag queen, Luke thinks Aysha is a cisgender woman. After they kiss, there’s a palpable fear for Aysha’s safety when Luke recoils at the sight of her Adam’s apple.“Unicorns,” directed by Sally El Hosaini and James Krishna Floyd, follows in the cinematic tradition of straight men bonding with L.G.B.T.Q. characters — this time arriving at a moment when drag performers face renewed attacks.Their unlikely encounter begins at a nightclub in East London, when Luke, a white working-class guy, accidentally stumbles into the underground “gaysian” scene on his way to the bathroom. His eyes are fixed on Aysha, the night’s star performer. But why would Aysha — who later says that she receives death threats for doing drag — seek him out not once, but twice? First, by running in front of his car after his agitated reaction to their kiss, and then by showing up at his car repair shop in Essex. None of this clicks with who we discover Aysha to be: guarded by necessity.Whether the later conflict involving queer infighting comes off as a thoughtless subversion of expectations depends on if you identify more with Luke or Aysha. More effective are the subtleties within their blossoming romance, like during a karaoke duet sequence that shows Luke softening to Aysha’s charms. Hardy peels back the layers to reveal Luke’s sexual awakening so viscerally that it’s easier to overlook the film’s narrative shortcuts.UnicornsNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 59 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Smurfs’ Review: Don’t Stop the Music

    The lovable blue guys (and one gal) go on a mission to save Papa Smurf in this colorful romp with an impressive voice cast.Smurfs, the blue-skinned, white-clad wee creatures created by the Belgian comic artist Pierre Culliford, known as Peyo, in 1958, have come a long way.This feature film, ostensibly a reboot of a franchise that began in 2011 with a picture called “The Smurfs,” is the most lavish and possibly bizarre cinematic take on these folk. Here, Smurfette (voiced by Rihanna), leads her fellow Smurfs on a mission to save Papa Smurf (voiced by John Goodman), who has been kidnapped.The little fellas and lone Smurfette speak as the Smurfs always have — that is, they say things like “You Smurfs don’t know Smurf about Smurf.” The word “Smurf” can be a noun, verb or a gerund.Each Smurf in Smurf Village serves a specific function or has a specific trait; Brainy Smurf can solve problems, while Vanity Smurf is, well, vain. Into this mix arrives a Smurf who doesn’t know his function because he doesn’t have a name (voiced by James Corden). From this introduction the viewer is catapulted into a singing, dancing multidimensional romp in which, among other things, four books are responsible for maintaining balance in the universe. (I was disappointed to learn they were not Lawrence Durrell’s “Alexandria Quartet.”)The loopy plot allows the director Chris Miller to unleash visuals that get trippy to the extreme. There’s a clever sequence in which the characters traverse planes of reality that tell a short history of animation itself. It’s refreshing to see children’s animation makers use surrealism, instead of winking pop-culture references, to charm adults.The excellent voice cast features Goodman and Nick Offerman as dueling patriarchs. They’re all very zippy, or if you wish, Smurfy.SmurfsRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. In theaters. More