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      Four Takeaways From the Metropolitan Opera’s Risky Season

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      The company has bet that new operas will attract new, more diverse audiences and revitalize a stale repertory. Is the gamble paying off?For years, the Metropolitan Opera — the nation’s largest performing arts institution, with a $300 million budget and 4,000-seat theater — was like an ocean liner, changing course slowly, if at all.But now it is trying to be more like a speedboat. Since the pandemic, with costs up and ticket sales down, the Met’s programming has taken a sharp swerve toward contemporary works, which used to come along once in a blue moon. In recent seasons, the Met has done fewer productions than it used to, but about a third of its operas now come from our times.Peter Gelb, the company’s general manager, has staked a large part of his legacy on the bet that these new operas will attract new and more diverse audiences, revitalizing a house repertory better known for presenting “Tosca” and “La Traviata,” year after year. With the Met entering its summer break this week, is that bet paying off, artistically and financially?The experiment is, at best, a work in progress.The Met put on 18 operas during this so-so season, and if you line them up in order of paid attendance, only one of the six contemporary pieces, Anthony Davis’s “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” is in the top half. Modern opera is not selling well, at least not better than classics like “The Magic Flute,” “Carmen” and “Turandot.”The Met’s economic model revolves around being able to efficiently bring back most pieces and have them find an audience. But this season raised alarms about how newer titles will do when revived. Gelb’s gamble on swiftly restaging two top sellers of recent seasons — Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” and Kevin Puts’s “The Hours” — fizzled, with the theater over a third empty for both. (The average performance across the season was 72 percent full.)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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      Mark James, ‘Suspicious Minds’ Songwriter, Is Dead at 83

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      Mr. James wrote hit songs recorded by Elvis Presley, Brenda Lee, Willie Nelson and other artists.Mark James, a genre-defying and Grammy Award-winning songwriter whose hits included “Suspicious Minds,” “Hooked on a Feeling” and “Always on My Mind,” died at his home in Nashville on Saturday. He was 83.His death was confirmed by his daughter, Sammie Zambon. The Houston Chronicle first reported the news of Mr. James’s death.Various stars, including Elvis Presley and Willie Nelson, lent their voices to Mr. James’s catalog of songs over the years.His career of powerhouse hits began in 1968 with “The Eyes of a New York Woman,” cut by the country and pop hitmaker B.J. Thomas. Mr. Thomas, a lifelong friend of Mr. James, then recorded “Hooked on a Feeling,” Mr. James’s 1968 song celebrating newfound love, which hit the top five that year. The song again made it to the top five in 1974, when the Swedish rock band Blue Swede released its version.Mr. James catapulted into a different stratosphere in 1969 when Elvis cut “Suspicious Minds,” a song Mr. James first recorded and released as a single, to little notice, the previous year. Elvis’s version reached No. 1 in 27 countries and became one of his biggest hits and his last No. 1 single. The song is included in Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.“Always On My Mind,” which Mr. James co-wrote with Wayne Carson and Johnny Christopher, became one of his most decorated works. Brenda Lee recorded the first version in 1972 before Elvis released his take in 1973 and John Wesley Ryles made it a top 20 country hit in 1979, according to the Texas Heritage Songwriters Association.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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      Audiences Are Returning to the Met Opera, but Not for Everything

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      The Met is approaching prepandemic levels of attendance. But its strategy of staging more modern operas to lure new audiences is having mixed success.Four years after the coronavirus brought the curtain down on the Metropolitan Opera, audiences are nearly back, the company announced on Thursday. But the company’s big bet on contemporary opera this season had mixed results.The Met, which has been facing serious fiscal challenges, said that the 2023-24 season ended this month with 72 percent paid attendance overall, approaching the 75 percent it had in the last full season before the pandemic.About a third of this season was devoted to contemporary operas, and those by living composers, as it works to connect with younger and more diverse audiences. Some were hits: Anthony Davis’s “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” drew 78 percent attendance, behind only Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” Bizet’s “Carmen” and Puccini’s “Turandot.”But two recent operas that had drawn sold-out crowds in previous seasons fared less well when they were revived: Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up In My Bones” drew 65 percent attendance, and Kevin Puts’s “The Hours,” which reunited the stars Renée Fleming, Kelli O’Hara and Joyce DiDonato, drew 61 percent.Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said the mix of old and new operas was helping drive a recovery at the box office by bringing new people into the opera house. But the company still faces significant obstacles. The Met, whose credit rating was downgraded in February by Moody’s Investors Service, has withdrawn about $70 million in emergency funds from its endowment over the past two seasons to help cover costs.“We believe we’re on the right path artistically,” he said. “But we’re still climbing out of the hole that the pandemic left us in.”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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      Pay $1 to Hear Wu-Tang Clan’s Secret Album (Eventually)

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      An online art collective that spent $4 million on “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” is telling fans their purchases will accelerate the one-of-a-kind album’s 2103 release date.Ten years ago, the most mysterious and expensive album of all time was announced by the Wu-Tang Clan as a protest against the devaluation of creativity in the age of the internet. “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” limited to one hyperdeluxe physical copy, was bought for a reported $2 million by the “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli and later acquired by an online art collective for $4 million.Now it can be yours for a dollar. Sort of.Pleasr, the online collective, began selling access to “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” on Thursday, charging fans $1 (plus fees) to be part of what it called an experiment to test a simple question: “Do people still value music in a digital era?” As befitting an album that has been wrapped in legal and public controversy for a decade, however, the transaction is anything but simple.For $1, fans will gain access to an encrypted digital version of “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.” But only a five-minute sampler of the album will be available now, Pleasr says.The Wu-Tang Clan’s original sale contract with Shkreli in 2015 said that “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” could not be released to the public for 88 years — until Oct. 8, 2103 — although the agreement allowed for private viewings and listening sessions.“Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” was originally bought by Martin Shkreli, a pharmaceutical executive. When he was convicted of securities fraud, the federal government seized the album.Richard Drew/Associated PressFor each $1 that Pleasr takes in, the group says it will reduce the waiting period for the full album’s release by 88 seconds. By a rough calculation, it would take about 28 million contributions of $1 apiece to eliminate that delay entirely.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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      A New Opera Mashes Up Monteverdi and W.E.B. Du Bois

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      “The Comet/Poppea” radically pares down a classic and blends it with a premiere by George E. Lewis for an original show that will travel widely.Morality takes a hike in Claudio Monteverdi’s final opera, “L’Incoronazione di Poppea.” Bold in its satire and explicit in its sensuality, even more than 350 years after its creation, the work gives its ruthless lovers, Nero and Poppea, everything they desire.A decadent exploration of Nero’s Rome, “Poppea” might seem to share little with “The Comet,” a W.E.B. Du Bois short story from 1920. Using tropes of sci-fi catastrophe, Du Bois, the famous Black sociologist, asks what it would take for a racially equitable civilization to emerge. But, like Monteverdi’s opera, it has an amoral, ice-cold finish: After the merest possibility of interracial love, the status quo of segregation returns.On Friday, both the opera and the story will be brought together, united by their common denominator of jaundiced cynicism, in “The Comet/Poppea,” which is premiering at Geffen Contemporary, a warehouse-style space at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. (There are already plans for it to travel to Philadelphia this fall, to New York next year and to the Schwarzman Center at Yale University in 2026.)Yuval Sharon, center, the director, with the singers Joelle Lamarre, left and Davóne Tines.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesAmanda Lynn Bottoms, seated, and Nardus Williams, lying on the floor, during a rehearsal for the show, which adapts a W.E.B. Du Bois story from 1920.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesePresented in Los Angeles by MOCA and the director Yuval Sharon’s company of operatic experimenters, the Industry, “The Comet/Poppea” was commissioned by the American Modern Opera Company. Over a 90-minute run time, it alternates between a radically pared-down “Poppea” and an adaptation of Du Bois’s story by the librettist Douglas Kearney and the composer George E. Lewis, for a mash-up featuring stark transitions — and superimpositions — between Monteverdi’s Baroque style and Lewis’s high-modernist states of frenzy.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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      Françoise Hardy, Moody French Pop Star, Dies at 80

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      Françoise Hardy, an introspective pop singer who became a hero to French youth in the 1960s with her moody ballads, died on Tuesday. She was 80.Her death, from cancer, was announced by her son, Thomas Dutronc, in a post on Instagram, saying simply, “Mom is gone.” No other details were provided.With songs like her breakthrough 1962 hit, “Tous les Garçons et les Filles” (“All the Boys and Girls”), and later “Dans le Monde Entier” (“All Over the World”); her lithe look, prized by star fashion designers; and her understated personality, Ms. Hardy incarnated a 1960s cool still treasured by the French.“How can we say goodbye to her?” President Emmanuel Macron of France said in a statement on Wednesday, a play on the title of Ms. Hardy’s 1968 hit “Comment Te Dire Adieu” (“How Can I Say Goodbye to You?”).She was the only French singer on Rolling Stone’s 2023 list of the 200 best singers of all time.Ms. Hardy in 1969. Her singular look — tall, long brown hair, a natural reticence — catapulted her into the worlds of fashion and film. Joost Evers/Anefo, via The National ArchivesWe 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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      Françoise Hardy: A Life in Photos

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      The French pop star Françoise Hardy, who died on Tuesday at the age of 80, was celebrated for her beauty and style, always striking the perfect pose whether she was doing a fashion shoot or had gotten caught in a candid picture. Hardy’s self-possession could be intimidating, but her songs created a sense of intimacy, pulling listeners close by exploring emotional depths, and she earned the love and loyalty of pop aficionados, devoted aesthetes and lonely souls.In these images we gathered, notice how she sometimes seems to be looking at us, even though we are looking at her. Notice also what is not there, besides any bad angles: no come-hither poses, no inviting décolleté, no exposed gams, and almost no teeth — Hardy’s smiles were of the closed lips, amused kind, not open-mouthed beams. In a photo captured on a motorboat, she’s the only one not wearing a bathing suit as she turns her face to the sun in what looks like serene bliss.Hardy was no prude and enjoyed fun — she was prone to fits of laughter, her close friend the singer Étienne Daho remembered in a brief eulogy — but she led her life and career while remaining true to herself, on her terms: watching the world with curiosity, artistically exacting, a little aloof and a little curmudgeonly, and always passionate.Hardy in London, where she did some of her recording, in 1963.Reporters Associes/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty ImagesHardy with Sheila, a fellow pop star, on the French Riviera, circa 1960. Hardy’s first big single was released in 1962.Reporters Associes/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty ImagesHardy and Claude François (center left) congratulate the winners of a twist dance competition in Paris, 1964.Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty ImagesHardy evolved into the kind of performer who unleashed emotion even as she refused to over-emote.Sam Falk/The New York TimesHardy at the Savoy Hotel in London, 1965. Jean-Marie Périer, in the background, photographed many of the yé-yé singers (as the rocking and twisting French singers of the era were known).Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty ImagesHardy on the set of the film “Grand Prix” in London, 1966.Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty ImagesHardy performing at the Savoy Hotel in London, 1967.Keystone/Hulton Archive and Getty ImagesHardy wearing a silver suit by the designer Paco Rabanne in London, 1968.Evening Standard/Hulton Archive and Getty ImagesCalle Hesslefors/ullstein bild, via Getty ImagesHardy on the streets of London in 1968.Chris Ware/Keystone Features and Getty ImagesBack in Paris, 1969.Reg Lancaster/Daily Express/Hulton Archive and Getty ImagesHardy, the actress Mireille Darc, and Liza Minnelli in the front row at Yves Saint-Laurent in Paris, 1969.Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty ImagesHardy rehearsing with her early singing teacher Mireille at a recording studio in Paris, 1969.Yves le Roux/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty ImagesHardy and the crooner Tino Rossi signing autographs at a campaign to support medical research in Paris, 1970.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHardy at the drums in 1970. Her main instrument was the guitar.Evening Standard/Hulton Archive and Getty ImagesHardy with the French singer-songwriter Julien Clerc in Lyon, 1974.Picot/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty ImagesHardy appeared on the German TV show “Liedercircus” (“Song Circus”) in 1977. Hardy stopped giving live concerts in the late ’60s.Impress Own/United Archives, via Getty ImagesHardy on the beach at Cannes, 1974.Gilbert Giribaldi/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty ImagesEtienne Daho and Hardy at the French music awards show Victoires De La Musique, in 1986.Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty ImagesHardy with Mireille again, at an event in Paris in 1996.Eric Feferberg/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHardy with her son, Thomas Dutronc.Stephane Cardinale/Sygma, via Getty ImagesJacques Morell/Sygma, via Getty Images More

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      Popcast (Deluxe): What’s an Aging Rapper to Do?

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeThe first segment of this week’s episode of Popcast (Deluxe), the weekly culture roundup show on YouTube hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, includes discussion of:Eminem’s new single, “Houdini”Eminem as a dedicated fan of rap musicJ. Cole’s collaboration with Cash Cobain, “Grippy,” and being in on the J. Cole-rapping-about-sex jokeDrake’s appearance on the SoundCloud novelty song “Wah Gwan Delilah”How rappers like Common and Method Man are grappling with hip-hop’s generation gapThe new Will Smith movie, “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” and the actor’s extensive, post-Slap press tour, including “Hot Ones”Whether Will Smith need his “Bad Boys” character as a safe place to act outConnect 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