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      Essra Mohawk, Self-Described Flower Child Singer-Songwriter, Dies at 75

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      She missed a shot at Woodstock glory. But she recorded well-received albums under her own name and worked with Frank Zappa, Jerry Garcia and others.Essra Mohawk, a prolific singer-songwriter and self-described flower child whose soulful, dreamlike songs captured the sunny optimism of the Woodstock era, and whose varied career included performing with Frank Zappa and Jerry Garcia and seeing one of her songs turned into a hit single by Cyndi Lauper, died on Dec. 11 at her home in Nashville. She was 75.The cause was cancer, her cousin Jeff Hurvitz said.Over the course of a career that lasted more than a half century, Ms. Mohawk never achieved the fame of contemporaries like Joni Mitchell, Carole King or Laura Nyro (to whom she was often compared). And she missed a chance at hippie immortality when her driver took a wrong turn on the way to the Woodstock festival in 1969.“We got there in time to see the last verse of the last song of the last act of the first night, and then the stage went dark before we got to it from the parking lot,” she recalled in a 2009 video interview.Still, Ms. Mohawk made her mark. Her album “Primordial Lovers,” produced by her husband, Frazier Mohawk, and released shortly after Woodstock, was met with critical praise. In 1977, the rock critic Paul Williams wrote in Rolling Stone that it was “firmly on my list of the top 25 all-time best albums.”While still in her teens, Ms. Mohawk was briefly a member of Frank Zappa’s anarchic band, the Mothers of Invention.via YouTubeShe recorded more than a dozen albums over the years, and, early in her career, served a stint as a member of Frank Zappa’s iconoclastic band, the Mothers of Invention.In the 1970s, Ms. Mohawk sang memorable songs like “Sufferin’ Till Suffrage” and “Interjections!,” for “Schoolhouse Rock!,” the series of animated educational shorts that was a Saturday morning television staple for the children of Generation X.In the early 1980s, she carved out a small place in Grateful Dead lore by touring with one Dead side project, the Jerry Garcia Band, and helping write a song, “Haze,” for another, Bob Weir’s Bobby & the Midnites.Ms. Lauper’s exuberant rendition of her song “Change of Heart” shot to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1987. Two years later, Tina Turner released a version of Ms. Mohawk’s “Stronger Than the Wind.”Ever dogged about finding an audience for her work, Ms. Mohawk even appeared in 1977 on “The Gong Show,” the campy showcase of amateur talent hosted by the colorful Chuck Barris, in which acts deemed flops were dispatched with the strike of a large gong.Some audience members jeered during Ms. Mohawk’s performance of her “Appointment With a Dream,” which involved her own ethereal take on scat singing. Still, she received two scores of 8 (out of 10) and one of 7 from the panel of three celebrity judges.“No, I wasn’t gonged, thank goodness,” Ms. Mohawk wrote in a 2016 post on the blog Rockasteria. “In fact, I scored a 23, my lucky number, but I came in second to a guy who played two saxophones at once.”Essra Mohawk was born Sandra Elayne Hurvitz on April 23, 1948, in Philadelphia, the younger of two children of Henry Hurvitz, a taxi driver, and Anne (Sosnow) Hurvitz, who worked at a beauty shop. She later adopted the name Essra, a twist on Essie, a nickname she picked up early in her career.Ms. Mohawk was married three times. No immediate family members survive. Her brother, Gary, died this year.By her early teens, she was already playing piano and filling notebooks with her songs. After graduating from George Washington High School in Philadelphia in 1966, she briefly attended the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts before moving to New York to start a music career.That career got a jump start when she was 19 and she and a couple of friends were strolling down Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village and met Mr. Zappa. “Frank invited us all in to see his show for free,” she said in a 2003 interview. “We became friends, and it wasn’t long before he had an opportunity to hear me play my music. He asked me join the Mothers right on the spot.”Being a satellite in the Zappa orbit came with its Zappaesque quirks. The band’s lead singer, Ray Collins, “came up with the name ‘Uncle Meat’ at one of our rehearsals, telling Frank that he thought it was a great name for a rock star,” she recalled in an interview with the British site Zappanews. “Frank immediately spun around and, pointing at me, proclaimed, ‘You’re Uncle Meat!’”Displeased with the name, Ms. Mohawk wriggled out of it a few months later, so Mr. Zappa appropriated it as the title for a Mothers album in 1969.Mr. Zappa signed her to his label, Bizarre Records, and, under the name Sandy Hurvitz, she released her first album, “Sandy’s Album Is Here at Last!”She released her last, “The One and Only,” in 2019. But she never forgot the invaluable career boost she missed out on with that wrong turn on the way to Woodstock.“Had I played Woodstock, we all know how that would have changed my life,” she said in 2009. But, she acknowledged, perhaps that was a blessing: “Knowing me, being the feral child that I was, I would have had no restraint, and I would have been long dead.” More

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      A Holiday Version of ‘I’m Just Ken,’ and 12 More Songs

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      Hear tracks by Central Cee, Kesha, Jason Moran and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Ryan Gosling and Mark Ronson, ‘I’m Just Ken (Merry Kristmas, Barbie)’A well-timed holiday remix that doubles as shameless Oscar campaigning? Yes, they Ken! Ryan Gosling and Mark Ronson’s “Barbie” showstopper “I’m Just Ken” is reimagined in three different formats — acoustic lament, club banger and Christmas novelty — on the newly released “I’m Just Ken” EP. “I’m Just Ken (Merry Kristmas Barbie)” reworks the arrangement into a stately, vaguely festive bit of chamber-pop; Gosling doesn’t fill the lyrics with Christmas puns, thankfully, but merely mutters in conclusion a wistful, “Merry Christmas, Barbie … wherever you are.” LINDSAY ZOLADZCentral Cee, ‘Entrapreneur’“We put the trap in entrapreneur,” the British drill rapper Central Cee spits on his first solo single of the year, following high-profile collaborations with Dave, Drake and PinkPantheress. In his signature knottily conversational flow, Cee boasts about his hustler mentality and sudden success, never forgetting from where he came: “Went from a Toyota Yaris to Urus,” he raps. “I still got the same work rate as before.” ZOLADZFlagboy Giz and Kango Slim, ‘Fell in Love at the Secondline’Flagboy Giz grew up on hip-hop, but he’s also a proud carrier of New Orleans tradition as a member, since 2015, of the Wild Tchoupitoulas tribe of Mardi Gras Indians. The title of his 2023 album “Disgrace to the Culture” points to the way his music determinedly mixes hip-hop with New Orleans lore. Twitchy trap programming and a low-slung piano riff join hints of brass-band sousaphone and Mardi Gras tambourine to carry “Fell in Love at the Secondline,” a flirtation mapped onto the city’s streets. JON PARELESGenesis Owusu, ‘Survivor’A fierce beat, relentless but changeable — with percussion, voices and programming — drives “Survivor,” a knowing vow of defiance in the face of every obstacle. “I am the lawless, formless, thoughtless, flawless chaos of the sun/I am the seed of life and love, you see the blaze, you better run” chants Genesis Owusu, born in Ghana and living in Australia. The track is brutal, full of paradoxical wordplay — and fully confrontational. PARELESIza, ‘Que Se Vá’Iza, a Brazilian singer and rapper, isn’t just breaking up in “Que Se Vá” (“Let It Go”); she’s also canceling the ex’s credit card. Her gleeful good riddance, with verses that build toward laughter, is propelled by Afro-Brazilian rhythms, programmed handclaps and a harmony chorus that exults in its spite. PARELESKesha, ‘Eat the Acid’Kesha set aside her pop and rock reflexes for the somber “Eat the Acid” from her 2023 album, “Gag Order.” She sings about indelible drug revelations and warns, “You don’t wanna be changed/like it changed me.” With stark keyboard drones, a cappella moments, processed vocals and distant, ethereal harmonies, Kesha pushes toward the experimental realms of songwriters like Julia Holter and Björk. PARELESMedicine, ‘That’s Alright, Friend’Medicine, the indie-rock band Brad Laner has led since 1990, thrives on overload, placing poppy tunes within a pile-on of instruments, voices, electronics and distortion. “That’s Alright, Friend” — the opening track on its 2023 album, “Silences” — bashes out a six-beat stomp behind Julia Monreal’s cheerful voice while bells ping, electronics chatter and layered guitars pick up her melody. Then the track starts lurching into new territory, swerving through a few episodes before ending up somewhere like a psychedelic sea chantey, while Monreal repeats the title as reassurance amid the din. PARELESEsperanza Spalding and Fred Hersch, ‘But Not for Me’A vocalist sits on a stool in a dark-lit subterranean jazz club, topped with a beret, she-bopping through standards. Even if that’s more or less what you think of when you hear the word “jazz,” it’s probably not what the name “Esperanza Spalding” calls to mind. But back in 2018, Spalding took a detour into the old songbook, at the elbow of the piano maestro Fred Hersch, during a weeklong stand at the Village Vanguard. A few tracks from those dates were released as an album earlier this year.Yes, she wore a beret and sat on a stool, and the lights were low. (She also left her bass at home.) Still, Spalding created healthy distance between herself and the old material. On “But Not for Me,” even as she delights in banter with Hersch’s piano, Spalding seems certain this Gershwin tune was not written “for” her. “They say that Russian plays do boast of many gray skies,” she sings, before tapping out on the next line. “And then some words I don’t really understand, ’cause it’s like Old English: ‘hi-ho, alas and lackaday?’” she says. “That’s how I feel — confused about the whole situation.” The audience laughs easily, agreeing that the old material shines best when thrown open to the light of the present day. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLODarcy James Argue’s Secret Society, ‘All In’Darcy James Argue and his airtight big band, Secret Society, have long made a cottage industry out of dynamic torque, and Argue rarely wastes a note. “All In,” from their aptly named album “Dynamic Maximum Tension,” starts with a tenuous and crooked drum beat, then a procession of rich harmonies — packed with just enough dissonance to tighten up the energy — before a heavier beat kicks in. The horns swell atop a percussive, string-muted piano part from Adam Birnbaum. Even as the sound grows triumphant, that catalytic dissonance never goes away. RUSSONELLOJason Moran featuring Brian Settles, ‘Flee as a Bird to Your Mountain/Ghosts’“From the Dancehall to the Battlefield” is the culmination of a long project for the pianist and multivalent artist Jason Moran, who has spent years exploring and elevating the legacy of James Reese Europe, a pioneering bandleader who was also the first Black American to lead U.S. troops into combat, as a lieutenant in the 369th Infantry Regiment (the renowned “Harlem Hellfighters”) during World War I. Europe also helmed the regiment’s orchestra, which made waves in France and helped pave the way for the Jazz Age’s big-band boom.On “From the Dancehall,” Moran leads a 10-piece ensemble through a swirl of material, placing Europe into conversation with the 100 years of jazz history that have followed in his wake. One highlight comes on “Flee as a Bird to Your Mountain/Ghosts,” as Moran pairs a dirge-like Europe composition — which Europe’s band used to play whenever an infantryman had died on the battlefield — with Albert Ayler’s spiritualist free-jazz classic “Ghosts.” Brian Settles, a prominent tenor saxophonist on the jazz scene in Washington (Europe’s hometown), carries the melody to “Ghosts,” smearing and savoring his notes, then shifts into a shivery, heart-spilling solo. RUSSONELLOConexión Divina, ‘Anestesia’A thunderstorm rumbles through “Anestesia” (“Anesthesia”) by Conexión Divina, a three-woman band based in Los Angeles that plays the regional Mexican style called sierreño, which features melancholy love songs. In “Anestesia,” Liz Trujillo sings about a longing so intense she needs to numb herself. Whether it’s a blinding infatuation or post-breakup regret, the desperation is palpable. PARELESAngelica Garcia, ‘El Que’In “El Que” (“He That”), Angelica Garcia wrestles with an inner demon who “chills, robs energy, controls and bewitches,” preying on her own self-doubt. A throbbing electronic pulse underlines her vulnerability; she fights back with booming drums and a choral chant, achieving a tense standoff. PARELESMary Lattimore, ‘Music for Applying Shimmering Eye Shadow’On her 2023 album, “Goodbye, Hotel Arkada,” the harpist Mary Lattimore welcomed electronics and processing while keeping the plucked, resonant tones of her instrument at the center of her music. “Music for Applying Shimmering Eye Shadow” is minimalistic and meditative with little exact repetition. Basking in the slow alternation of two echoey chords topped with ever-changing fragments of melody, it does, indeed, shimmer. — PARELES More

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      A Playlist to Remember the Musicians We Lost in 2023

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      A playlist honoring David Crosby, Wayne Shorter, Sinead O’Connor, Jimmy Buffett and other musicians who died this year.David Crosby, a founding member of the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, died in January.Sulfiati Magnuson/Getty ImagesDear listeners,Doesn’t it seem like the “In Memoriam” segments on awards shows get longer with each passing year? It can sometimes feel like we’re in a perpetual state of mourning, saying goodbye to one brilliant musician after the next. Social media, the 24-hour news cycle and an aging population of era-defining artists all contribute to the perception that we’re constantly suffering huge losses.Even by that light, 2023 was a year of exceptional grief in the music world. We bid farewell to some absolute titans (Harry Belafonte, Tina Turner, Tony Bennett), countercultural icons (David Crosby, Robbie Robertson, Jeff Beck), and beloved rebels (Sinead O’Connor, Tom Verlaine, Shane MacGowan), among many others.For today’s newsletter — the final Amplifier of 2023 — I thought it would be fitting to compile my own “In Memoriam” segment, in the form of a playlist honoring those we lost throughout the year. It’s an eclectic collection in terms of genre, generation and geography; Japanese electro-pop legends sit alongside American jazz greats and Canadian folk revivalists. This may be cold comfort, but we’ll take any silver lining we can get: The magnitude of those we lost this year means this is a very, very good playlist.Like any “In Memoriam” tribute, this one inevitably omits a few names. But I hope it honors some of the musicians who meant something to you and that it introduces a few unfamiliar artists whose discographies are ripe for posthumous discovery.One programming note: As I mentioned, this is the last Amplifier of the year, as we’re taking a one-week break over the holidays. We’ll be back the first week of January with a roundup of the best older songs you discovered in 2023. I’m loving all the submissions we’ve received so far; keep them coming! We may use your response in an upcoming edition of The Amplifier.As ever, thanks to each and every one of you for reading and listening this year. Happy 2024.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Jeff Beck: “Over the Rainbow”Let’s start off with a classic, reimagined as a soaring, wordless aria by the guitar legend Jeff Beck, who died on Jan. 10 at 78. “For all his speed and dexterity,” my colleague Jon Pareles wrote in an appreciation of this performance, “Beck never underestimated the beauty of a sustained melody.” (Listen on YouTube)2. David Crosby: “Laughing”On Jan. 19, the world lost the irascible, angel-voiced David Crosby, who defined the sound of folk-rock in the 1960s and ’70s as a founding member of the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. I’m a fan of his meanderingly beautiful 1971 solo album “If I Could Only Remember My Name,” and this track in particular. I also count myself absurdly lucky to have interviewed Crosby over the phone about a year and a half before he died; he called beforehand to ask if he could push back our conversation a few minutes because his hotel breakfast had just arrived. I said of course, and he called back maybe half an hour later, still grateful, easefully friendly and very forthcoming. Rest in peace to a man who appreciated a good breakfast. (Listen on YouTube)3. Television: “See No Evil”There’s a rare pantheon of records that, regardless of passing trends, will always sound effortlessly and undeniably cool to each new generation that discovers them. Television’s “Marquee Moon” is one of those albums, in large part because of the frontman Tom Verlaine, who died on Jan. 28 at 73. As a guitarist, Verlaine had chops to spare, but it took a certain attitude — heard on this leadoff track of “Marquee Moon” — to make virtuosity sound punk. (Listen on YouTube)4. Dusty Springfield: “(They Long to Be) Close to You”Burt Bacharach, who died on Feb. 8 at age 94, wrote a seemingly infinite number of perfect pop songs, like this one that the Carpenters made a No. 1 smash in 1970. Dusty Springfield’s earlier version, recorded in 1964, isn’t as well known, but it’s every bit as stirring, thanks in large part to the emotional acuity of Bacharach’s timeless composition. (Listen on YouTube)5. Wayne Shorter: “Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum”Until his death on March 2 at 89, the saxophonist Wayne Shorter was considered by many to be the greatest living jazz composer. His singular, expressive playing on this highlight from his 1966 album, “Speak No Evil,” is one of many recordings that suggest why. (Listen on YouTube)6. Yellow Magic Orchestra: “Technopolis”The pioneering Japanese electronic group Yellow Magic Orchestra lost two of its three principal members this year: the drummer and vocalist Yukihiro Takahashi on Jan. 11 and, a little over two months later, the keyboardist Ryuichi Sakamoto. Both had long and varied solo careers as well, but their work in Y.M.O., like on this leadoff track from the 1979 album “Solid State Survivor,” is still enduringly influential and instantly recognizable. (Listen on YouTube)7. Harry Belafonte: “Jamaica Farewell”“Calypso,” the blockbuster 1956 release by the Jamaican American singer, actor and activist Harry Belafonte, helped bring Caribbean sounds to the masses: It is said to be the first LP by a solo artist to sell over a million copies. This wistful West Indian folk tune was the album’s lead single, and it long remained a signature song for Belafonte, who died on April 25 at 96. (Listen on YouTube)8. Gordon Lightfoot: “Sundown”The Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, who died on May 1 at 84, was a familiar presence on AM radio in the early 1970s, when he scored hit after unlikely hit. None charted higher than the infectious “Sundown,” the title track off his 1974 album and his only song to hit No. 1 in the United States. The track’s buoyant rhythm and lush harmonies contrast with its lyrical preoccupation with jealousy, inebriation and mistrust, creating an alluringly dark pop song. (Listen on YouTube)9. Tina Turner: “What’s Love Got to Do With It”Talk about a comeback. The mighty Tina Turner hadn’t had a Top 10 hit in the U.S. in more than a decade when in 1984 she returned with a vengeance, belting out this anthem and strutting down the streets of New York in its unforgettable music video. “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” released when Turner was 44, was her long-awaited liberation, and the force of her vocal delivery tells you how much life — and rock-star attitude — she had in her. She died May 24 at 83. (Listen on YouTube)10. Astrud Gilberto: “Berimbau”The 83-year-old Brazilian bossa nova singer Astrud Gilberto, who died on June 5, was best known as the serenely stylish vocalist who sang Stan Getz’s “The Girl From Ipanema.” But her discography is full of other treasures, like her lovely 1966 album of songs arranged by Gil Evans, “Look to the Rainbow,” on which this elegant, atmospheric track named for a one-stringed Brazilian instrument appears. (Listen on YouTube)11. The Band: “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”Robbie Robertson’s music had an almost eerie way of fusing the past and the present, creating compositions that sound at once rooted and untethered to linear time. This song — a Canadian musician’s evocation of Civil War-era America, with a little help from his then-Bandmate, the Arkansas-born Levon Helm — is an ambiguous document, still sparking fresh debate more than 50 years after its release. But above all it is a testament to the slippery songwriting power of Robertson, who died on Aug. 9 at 80. (Listen on YouTube)12. Jane Birkin: “Jane B.”The iconic Jane Birkin — perhaps the most quintessentially French person ever to be born outside of France — was so much more than just the namesake of a coveted Hermès bag. As a musician, too, she was more than just a coquettish co-conspirator with her onetime husband Serge Gainsbourg; she forged a long solo career that continued after they split in 1980. This orchestral, Chopin-inspired ballad is from one of their greatest collaborations, the 1969 album “Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg,” but here it’s Birkin, who died on July 16 at 76, who takes the lead. (Listen on YouTube)13. Tony Bennett: “(I Left My Heart) In San Francisco”Tony Bennett was a New Yorker through and through, but for the three-minute span of this classic, you could have sworn he was a Frisco kid. Bennett, who died on July 21 at 96, showed off both the crystalline purity of his voice and his ample lung power on the song that became his most recognizable standard. (Listen on YouTube)14. Sinead O’Connor: “Black Boys on Mopeds”On July 26, music lost one of its great and most uncompromising truth tellers. The piercing voice, moral courage and fierce compassion of Sinead O’Connor are all front and center on this acoustic ballad from her second album, “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got,” a track as devastatingly relevant today as it was when she wrote it in 1990. (Listen on YouTube)15. Rodriguez: “Crucify Your Mind”The final decade of the folk singer Sixto Rodriguez’s life was a prolonged and deserved victory lap, thanks to the Oscar-winning 2012 documentary “Searching for Sugar Man,” which introduced his once-obscure music to a whole new audience. His performance of this song on “The Late Show With David Letterman,” 42 years after its release, still haunts me. (Listen on YouTube)16. Jimmy Buffett: “A Pirate Looks at Forty”The Mayor of Margaritaville left us on Sept. 1 at 76. Though best known for his party anthems, this meditation on mortality, “A Pirate Looks at Forty,” proves that Buffet was no stranger to the introspective ballad — albeit one seasoned with his own special salt. (Listen on YouTube)17. The Isley Brothers: “Livin’ in the Life”Though his brother Ronald usually sang lead, Rudolph Isley, who died on Oct. 11 at 84, provides a memorable assist on this sublimely funky single from their group’s 1977 album “Go for Your Guns.” (Listen on YouTube)18. The Pogues: “If I Should Fall From Grace With God”Music lost one of its most cantankerous poets on Nov. 30, when Shane MacGowan, the lead singer and songwriter of the Celtic punk band the Pogues, died at 65. This defiantly rousing title track from the band’s 1988 album should serve as an appropriately unsentimental requiem: “If I’m buried ’neath the sod, but the angels won’t receive me/Let me go, boys/Let me go, boys/Let me go down in the mud where the rivers all run dry.” (Listen on YouTube)To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“In Memoriam: Musicians We Lost in 2023” track listTrack 1: Jeff Beck, “Over the Rainbow”Track 2: David Crosby, “Laughing”Track 3: Television, “See No Evil”Track 4: Dusty Springfield, “(They Long to Be) Close to You”Track 5: Wayne Shorter, “Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum”Track 6: Yellow Magic Orchestra, “Technopolis”Track 7: Harry Belafonte, “Jamaica Farewell”Track 8: Gordon Lightfoot, “Sundown”Track 9: Tina Turner, “What’s Love Got to Do with It”Track 10: Astrud Gilberto, “Berimbau”Track 11: The Band, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”Track 12: Jane Birkin, “Jane B.”Track 13: Tony Bennett, “(I Left My Heart) In San Francisco”Track 14: Sinead O’Connor, “Black Boys on Mopeds”Track 15: Rodriguez, “Crucify Your Mind”Track 16: Jimmy Buffett, “A Pirate Looks at Forty”Track 17: The Isley Brothers, “Livin’ in the Life”Track 18: The Pogues, “If I Should Fall from Grace with God” More

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      Sandra Bernhard Still Has Plenty to Say

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      Sandra Bernhard was early for a midmorning Chelsea coffee date, already perched at the cafe with a hefty cup. She sat not inside at the reserved table, but outdoors in a street shed, in full view of passers-by. She waved at neighbors and greeted her dog walker in a barrage of “honeys” and blown kisses, trilling a song to one of her charges — “Regiiiina” — that stopped the puggle (and some other pooches) in their tracks.The comedian, actor and singer has lived in Chelsea for more than two decades, raising her daughter, Cicely, now 25 and a Brooklynite, there with her partner, Sara Switzer, a writer. Since the ’80s, she has been an emblem of the city’s downtown cool, a spiky transgressive with enough cultural currency to set Broadway aflame with a one-woman show. She sold a Los Angeles home around 2010, and now, unlike most celebrities of her vintage, has only the one local address. (“I don’t need three country houses,” she said.)It’s only natural, then, that Bernhard’s year-end shows at Joe’s Pub, which she started performing in 2005, are as much a part of the city’s holiday season as Midtown gridlock and glittery department store displays — which Bernhard has a stake in too. This year, Cicely, an artist, worked on the windows at Bergdorf Goodman, her mother said with pride.Her daughter also inspired a musical choice in “Easy Listening,” the latest Joe’s Pub series: a Lana Del Rey song; Cicely had been a fan in high school. “She would apply the winged liquid eyeliner, and it got everywhere, so that drove us crazy,” Bernhard said. “But now I’m really into Lana, and I do really get it.”That cover was all Bernhard, 68, would reveal about “Easy Listening,” which runs Dec. 26 through New Year’s Eve. It’s billed as a tour of her musical inspirations, including the Supremes, Tina Turner and Joni Mitchell, and will also include all new material and comedic riffs (which she wouldn’t share either). Bernhard likes to keep it fresh for her many returning fans. “There’s been so much to write about — not all of it pleasant,” she said. “But the trick is to find a way into it that makes it sort of ironic, or madcap.”Politics get only sidelong attention. Focusing directly on the state of the world, she said, “becomes very intense and melancholy and a little bit depressing. That’s just not my thing at all.” Even in her recent roles on “Pose” and “American Horror Story: NYC” — both set in the 1980s New York demimonde she inhabited — she brought a righteous earthiness, with some joie de vivre.“You had to have a little bit of an edge,” Bernhard said of her early days, “otherwise I would have been crushed.”Caroline Tompkins for The New York TimesAndy Cohen, the Bravo executive, is a longtime friend, a fan — he’s hardly ever missed a Joe’s Pub gig, he said — and an enabler, featuring Bernhard frequently on his late-night show “Watch What Happens Live” and giving her a home on his Sirius radio channel. “The things that go through her filter are so specific and unique,” he said, whether she’s reminiscing about her starter job as a manicurist in 1970s Beverly Hills, or taking on the series “Yellowstone” — “which is a show I don’t watch,” Cohen said, “but I still want to hear her riff on it.”“She has her own rhythm, she has her own language — I think she’s something of a poet,” he added. And as a cultural figure, “I don’t think she gets enough credit.”Bernhard has clocked a lot of cutting-edge moments: A generation before Ali Wong earned acclaim for doing raunchy comedy while pregnant, Bernhard was blazing the theater world, including on Broadway with her solo show “I’m Still Here … Damn It!” — foul-mouthed with a sheer dress and a baby bump, that she pointedly never addressed. “First of all, being pregnant is so, sort of, pedestrian,” she said. “There’s a billion people having babies all the time, so why talk about it? It wasn’t my jam. And I loved it. I had so much fun being pregnant, being onstage, performing, and not just sitting around waiting to have a baby.” (The show also drew criticism for a bit about Mariah Carey that the singer found racist; Bernhard has said her language was socially acceptable commentary at the time, but also acknowledged that comedy standards have changed.)She hosted a 10 p.m. talk show for A&E long before the chatter about women taking the helm in late night. And years before Ellen DeGeneres came out, Bernhard played one of the first openly queer characters on TV, as Nancy, a friend on “Roseanne,” in the ’90s; she was also an outspoken presence during the peak of the AIDS epidemic.“She was one of the people who taught us — who taught me — how to activate, how to be present and show up,” said Billy Porter, her co-star on “Pose,” the FX series about underground ball culture, whose characters are haunted by the disease.For Bernhard, it was a chance to mine her real-life emotions — she lost many friends to AIDS, she said — in a character, a nurse, who was, as she put it, unglamourously “in the trenches.”She and Porter were the two cast members who had personally experienced the first wave of the AIDS crisis. “We really connected on that — the other people were acting a history lesson, but we had actually lived it,” he said. “We were telling stories of intense trauma, and it was great to have her there to help me.”In a marigold sweatshirt, mom jeans and high-tops, her auburn curls still effortlessly springy, Bernhard cuts a youthful, relaxed figure. Her vibe is surprisingly calm. “I’m not a frantic person,” she said. “I don’t need to run from one thing to the next to feel fulfilled.” Over coffee, we talked about parenting, schools, real estate; she is blissfully domestic, and loves doing dishes and laundry. “It’s very meditative,” she said.Where once she was known for tearing up the town with her onetime pal Madonna, now you might find her glued to TV sports. “I adore bowling, it’s my favorite thing to do on Sunday, watch bowling on ESPN,” she posted on Instagram a couple of years ago. A Michigan native, she also loves the Detroit Lions. From age 10, she was raised by her artist mother and proctologist father in Scottsdale, Ariz., the youngest of four siblings and the only daughter. “I knew when I was 4 or 5 that I would be a performer,” she said.Bernhard, left, onstage with Madonna at a 1989 benefit. These days, Bernhard spends her free time closer to home.Vinnie Zuffante/Getty ImagesEarly in her career she was known for tearing down celebrity culture with more than a little bite. Being tough was something of a persona — starting out in the ’70s, as a woman performing, “You had to have a little bit of an edge,” she said, “otherwise I would have been crushed.”Now she doesn’t have the zeal to skewer the social media-influencer-industrial complex; it doesn’t interest her, and anyway, she has evolved. “It takes a lot of energy to stay with your dukes up, right?” she said. “But I do like it when certain people are a little intimidated by me. It’s better that way.”Though she was too demure to name names, she has influenced a younger generation of performers.“She was so out there and wild with her style and the tone of her material,” said the comic Cameron Esposito, whose conservative Catholic family forbade her from watching Bernhard on “Roseanne” or in her many ribald appearances on the “Late Show With David Letterman.” (She did anyway.) “Everything about her was outside the television landscape that I was being fed, her mannerisms, how brash she was,” Esposito said.For the actor and comedian John Early, who like Bernhard uses music in his act, she was a path-setter — “a real hero,” he said.“The way she unapologetically drops into covers and sings them with total abandon and sincerity gave me permission to do the same,” he said. “She’s like a psychedelic cabaret artist.”Her off-kilter delivery and flair — “her grooviness,” he called it — also inspired him. “One time I sat right at the edge of the stage of her holiday show and she roasted me for ordering the pizza popcorn,” he added. “It was an honor.”Her fan base is devoted, flying in from out of town, Bernhard said; one night, she did five encores. But she doesn’t rehearse the storytelling in advance — she’s still mainlining the spontaneity she had starting out. “She’s very much in the moment,” said Mitch Kaplan, her musical director, who has worked with her since 1985. “When she’s singing songs, too, she’ll never sing them the same way. One of the thrills in performing for her is you really have to listen to her, and follow her.”For die-hards like Cohen, the holiday show is Bernhard at her best. “It’s celebratory; it’s funny; it’s raw; it feels underground, like everything she does. I find it really inspiring,” he said.“I ran into her at the gym the other day,” Cohen added, “and I said, Please tell me you’re going to be talking about Barbra Streisand’s audiobook at the Joe’s Pub show! I said, I need this into my veins. She was like, I’m still figuring it out, honey. She always surprises me.”Requests from famous fans aside, Bernhard said her normal life offstage has helped her endure. “I’m always happy doing dishes,” she said. “And I’m also happy when I get onstage and the band is playing and I walk out and I see people who are having fun and connecting. I love that moment. That has all the meaning that I need.” More

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      Lawsuit Over Naked Baby on Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ Is Revived

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      The suit about the 1991 album had been dismissed because of the statute of limitations. But an appeals court ruled that it could proceed, noting that the album had been reissued in 2021.A federal appeals court ruled against the grunge rock group Nirvana on Thursday, reviving a lawsuit about the band’s use of a naked baby on the cover of its 1991 album “Nevermind.”A district court judge had dismissed Spencer Elden’s lawsuit that said he was a victim of child sexual abuse imagery, ruling that the complaint had not been filed within the 10-year statute of limitations. But a three-judge panel on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed that decision, finding that “each republication” of an image “may constitute a new personal injury.”The appeals court noted that Mr. Elden’s 2021 complaint says Nirvana has reproduced the album cover within the past 10 years, including the band’s September 2021 rerelease of “Nevermind.”“The question whether the ‘Nevermind’ album cover meets the definition of child pornography is not at issue in this appeal,” the court wrote in a footnote.The case will now return to the district court.A lawyer for Mr. Elden did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Bert H. Deixler, a lawyer for Nirvana, said in a statement that the opinion was a “procedural setback.”“We will defend this meritless case with vigor and expect to prevail,” Mr. Deixler said.Mr. Elden was 4 months old when he was photographed in 1991 by a family friend at the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center in Pasadena, Calif. His parents were paid $200 for the picture, which was later altered to show the baby chasing a dollar, dangling from a fishhook.In the decades that followed, Mr. Elden seemed to celebrate his appearance on the classic album cover, recreating the moment — though not in the nude — for several of the album’s anniversaries.But in the lawsuit, Mr. Elden said he had suffered “permanent harm” because of his association with the album, including emotional distress and a “lifelong loss of income-earning capacity.”The lawsuit did not detail the losses but said that Nirvana, the producers of the album and others had all profited at Mr. Elden’s expense.Lawyers for Nirvana argued that Mr. Elden had benefited financially from the album cover by re-enacting the photograph for a fee and making public appearances parodying the image. They have also denied that the picture in question was an example of child sexual abuse imagery, noting that the photograph is present in the homes of millions of Americans.Maria Cramer More

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      Best Classical Music Albums of 2023

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      Our favorites include premiere recordings of works by Thomas Adès and Anna Thorvaldsdottir, as well as portraits of Missy Mazzoli and Kaija Saariaho.Thomas Adès: ‘Dante’Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra; Gustavo Dudamel, conductor (Nonesuch)“Inferno”: “The Gluttons — in slime”NonesuchThis recording has so much to applaud: the achievement of Thomas Adès in writing such a clever, vivid, effective work; the ambition of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in performing its hour and a half of music in a single evening and taping it live; the wisdom of Nonesuch in releasing the audio. Essential listening. DAVID ALLENBach: ‘Goldberg’ VariationsVikingur Olafsson, piano (Deutsche Grammophon)Variation 15Deutsche GrammophonThe finest interpreters of the “Goldberg” Variations balance the individuality of each section with a sense of shape over the work’s 75 minutes. Vikingur Olafsson does that — achieving unity while avoiding flatness — and more, from a beautifully simple Aria to a life-affirming Quodlibet and back, with nostalgic sweetness, to the Aria again. JOSHUA BARONE‘Broken Branches’Karim Sulayman, tenor; Sean Shibe, guitar (Pentatone)Fairuz: “Li Beirut” (arr. Sean Shibe and Karim Sulayman)PentatoneThis year, there wasn’t anything in classical music quite like this thoughtful program of songs, arranged for Karim Sulayman’s alluring voice and Sean Shibe’s expressive guitar, that create dialogues across cultures and centuries — raising complicated questions about identity, exoticization and exchange along the way — while providing an absolutely beautiful listening experience. JOSHUA BARONEByrd: ‘The Golden Renaissance’Stile Antico (Decca)Mass for Four Voices: “Agnus Dei”DeccaWilliam Byrd died 400 years ago this July, and the anniversary celebrations offered no finer tribute than this typically imaginative, immaculate record from Stile Antico. At its heart is the Mass for Four Voices; I could listen to the exquisitely tender “Agnus Dei” all day, and for a week or two last winter, I think I actually did. DAVID ALLENChristopher Cerrone: ‘In a Grove’Metropolis Ensemble; Andrew Cyr, conductor (In a Circle)“Scene 5: The Outlaw”In a CircleChristopher Cerrone and Stephanie Fleischmann’s “In a Grove,” an operatic retelling of the short story that also inspired the film “Rashomon,” is a vividly immersive thriller about the nature of truth and memory. Not a word or note is without dramaturgical purpose, and both are captured, if not enhanced, in this richly produced recording. JOSHUA BARONE‘Contra-Tenor’Michael Spyres, tenor; Il Pomo d’Oro; Francesco Corti, conductor (Erato)Latilla: “Se il mio paterno amore”(Erato)With a juicy, chesnut-colored timbre, a stupefying three-octave range and a keen instinct for showmanship, Michael Spyres flies through virtuoso arias from the Baroque and early Classical eras. It’s 70 minutes of gobsmacking singing. The effervescent playing of Il Pomo d’Oro contributes to the album’s heady effect. OUSSAMA ZAHR‘Julius Eastman, Vol. 3: If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?’Wild Up; Devonté Hynes and Adam Tendler, pianos (New Amsterdam)“Evil Nigger”New AmsterdamThis latest in Wild Up’s series of recordings of works by Julius Eastman takes on three stormy, swiftly shifting, open-ended scores, rendered in new arrangements for a large and varied ensemble with passion, richness and complexity — a forest of details — and a controlled chaos inspired by free jazz. ZACHARY WOOLFE‘Fantasia’Igor Levit, piano (Sony Classical)Liszt: Piano Sonata in B minor, first movementSonyRefulgent Bach, poetically precise Liszt, twilit Berg, artfully brooding Busoni — the pianist Igor Levit is aware of style but more beholden to affect. He works methodically, his mind on not just the next bar but the next page, as he proves the coherence and the imagination of this album’s expansive, fantasy-like pieces. OUSSAMA ZAHRFauré: ‘Nocturnes & Barcarolles’Marc-André Hamelin (Hyperion)Nocturne No. 12 in E minorHyperionFauré’s 13 nocturnes and 13 barcarolles — two and a half hours in all — are not the kind of dizzyingly virtuosic works that are the fire-fingered Marc-André Hamelin’s stock in trade. But his clarity and sensitivity confirm that this is music of tender poignancy and subtle experimentation. ZACHARY WOOLFE‘Gradus ad Parnassum’Jean Rondeau, harpsichord (Erato)Fux: Ciaccona in DEratoTaking on works for piano by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Debussy on this quietly audacious album — a reflection on influence, transcription and re-creation — the harpsichordist Jean Rondeau also shows his gift for in-the-moment artfulness in pieces originally for his instrument by Palestrina, Clementi and Johann Joseph Fux. ZACHARY WOOLFEJohnson: ‘De Organizer’ and ‘The Dreamy Kid’University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra; Kenneth Kiesler, conductor (Naxos)“De Organizer”NaxosHere, James P. Johnson, the composer of “The Charleston,” sets texts by Langston Hughes and Eugene O’Neill in two short stage works. Aside from scholars, who knew? Well, now everyone can experience this Harlem Stride pianist’s talent for orchestration, shaping narrative — and, on occasion, weaving the feel of spirituals into the fabric of American opera. SETH COLTER WALLSLiszt: ‘Transcendental Études’Yunchan Lim, piano (Steinway & Sons)“Harmonies du Soir”Steinway & SonsYunchan Lim was just 18 when he played this formidable Liszt collection during the semifinals of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition last year. He is already so mind-bogglingly accomplished technically, and so refined musically, that these formidable works sound easy. “I’d like to be a musician with infinite possibilities,” he has said. And so he would appear to be. DAVID ALLENWynton Marsalis: Symphony No. 4, ‘The Jungle’Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra; Nicholas Buc, conductor (Blue Engine Records)Movement VI: “Struggle in the Digital Market”Blue Engine RecordsWynton Marsalis’s best symphony draws from his familiar lodestars. Duke Ellington looms large, as ever and as he ought. But other affinities also bloom: post-Minimalist orchestral riffing, pastoral melody and noir ambience all have their say. Plus, Marsalis’s climactic trumpet exclamations summon Cootie Williams from the grave. SETH COLTER WALLSMissy Mazzoli: ‘Dark With Excessive Bright’Peter Herresthal, violin; Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra; Arctic Philharmonic; Tim Weiss, James Gaffigan, conductors (Bis)“Dark With Excessive Bright”BisMissy Mazzoli is a master of chiaroscuro. Her first full-length album of orchestral music opens with a bold statement of blinding light and warmly inviting darkness. Her compositions have a signature sound and a sense of movement, as in the enlarging circles of “Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres)” and the plunging explorations of “These Worlds in Us.” OUSSAMA ZAHRMendelssohn: ‘Quartets Vol. 2’Quatuor Van Kuijk (Alpha)String Quartet No. 6 in F minor, Finale: Allegro moltoAlphaIt can be difficult, throughout this survey of Mendelssohn’s string quartets, to tell whether one or four instruments are being played, so unified are the Quatuor Van Kuijk players in their interpretation and delivery. At their most impressive, as in their excellent Schubert album, they are capable of shattering expressivity without a hint of sentimentality. JOSHUA BARONEMonteverdi: ‘Vespro della Beata Vergine’Pygmalion; Raphaël Pichon, conductor (Harmonia Mundi)“Ave maris stella”Harmonia MundiThere was good reason to think a little more deeply about the future of the period-instrument movement this year, but in Raphaël Pichon and his Pygmalion ensemble, the future may already be here. They already have a strong list of recordings to their name, but this is one of their most daring, fervent and joyous and free. DAVID ALLENRavel: ‘L’Oeuvre Pour Piano’Philippe Bianconi, piano (La Dolce Volta)“Une Barque sur l’Océan”La Dolce VoltaThe French pianist Philippe Bianconi traces his pedagogical lineage back to Ravel’s circle, and the result is an album that is magical and transporting, lean and precise. There is no wallowing, no schmaltz. The melancholy he finds in “Sonatine” is as sharply observed as the jerky flight of moths in “Noctuelles.” OUSSAMA ZAHRSaariaho: ‘Reconnaissance’Helsinki Chamber Choir; Nils Schweckendiek, conductor (Bis)“Nuits, Adieux”: VIII. Adieu III — IX. Adieu IV — X. Adieu VBisThe painful loss of Kaija Saariaho this year makes this album particularly precious. Saariaho’s choral music — including the title work, from 2020, to a text about encounters with Mars — looks back to medieval chant and Renaissance madrigals, and forward to a future of eerie cyborg combinations of the acoustic and electronic. ZACHARY WOOLFE‘Rising’Lawrence Brownlee, tenor; Kevin J. Miller, piano (Warner Classics)Robert Owens: “In time of silver rain”Warner ClassicsThis beautifully curated album has the sound of an artist who went into the recording studio with something urgent and personal to say. Lawrence Brownlee, Rossini tenor extraordinaire, stretches his vibrato-dense instrument to register subtle feelings aroused in him by songs of the African American experience. Captivating in his commitment, he doesn’t waste a note. OUSSAMA ZAHRHenry Threadgill: ‘The Other One’Henry Threadgill Ensemble (Pi Recordings)“Of Valence”: Movement I, Sections 6A-7APi RecordingsThis is where the Second Viennese School meets American second line parade music. Recorded live at Roulette in Brooklyn, and conducted by Henry Threadgill, the blend of strings, woodwinds, tuba, piano and percussion on this recording of “Of Valence” conjures jazz combo and chamber music ecstasies alike. SETH COLTER WALLS‘Weather Systems II: Soundlines’Steven Schick, percussion (Islandia Music Records)Vivian Fung: “The Ice Is Talking”Islandia Music RecordsEver ambitious, the percussionist Steven Schick fills this set with three hours of self-challenges, including Xenakis’s benchmark “Psappha”; Vivian Fung’s “The Ice Is Talking,” played on a block of the frozen stuff; Roger Reynolds’s “Here and There,” incorporating a Beckett text; and the hourlong sparseness of Sarah Hennies’s “Thought Sectors.” ZACHARY WOOLFETchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra; Manfred Honeck, conductor (Reference Recordings)II. Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenzaReference RecordingsManfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra have a habit of recording benchmark accounts of classic works, and this Tchaikovsky is no exception. It’s not just their ability to make the most of even the tiniest details that makes this account special, but also how each of those details speaks in service of Honeck’s hair-raising conception of the work. DAVID ALLENAnna Thorvaldsdottir: ‘Archora/Aion’Iceland Symphony Orchestra; Eva Ollikainen, conductor (Sono Luminus)“Aion”: “Entropia”Sono LuminusThe Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir has long been associated with evocations of the earth and tectonic forces. Here, especially in the symphony-length “Aion,” her preoccupation is still ecological, but in an abstract, grander sense that surveys immense textures and forms from ever-shifting scales of time and space. Feel small yet? JOSHUA BARONEMary Lou Williams: ‘Zodiac Suite’Aaron Diehl Trio and the Knights; Eric Jacobsen, conductor (Mack Avenue Records)“Pisces”Mack Avenue RecordsThe chamber orchestra edition of Mary Lou Williams’s “Zodiac Suite” receives marvelous new life here. The Knights revel in textures flowing from her appreciation of Hindemith; a rhythm section locks into swing grooves. The pianist Aaron Diehl moves deftly between those worlds, and supports an art-song finale that features the soprano Mikaela Bennett. SETH COLTER WALLSEric Wubbels: “If and Only If”Josh Modney, violin; Mariel Roberts, cello; Eric Wubbels, piano (Carrier Records)“Haven”Carrier RecordsThe composer-performer Eric Wubbels brings meticulous poise to his experimentalism. Each new movement of this hourlong piano trio may sound alarming at first. But it’s not shock for shock’s sake: Wubbels maintains immersion in alternate tunings and microtonality in order to set up gradual, ravishing changes. You just might bliss out. SETH COLTER WALLS More

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      Popcast (Deluxe): The Kid Mero on the Viral Characters of 2023

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeThis week’s episode of Popcast (Deluxe), the weekly culture roundup show on YouTube hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, features a conversation with the comedian and podcast star the Kid Mero, dissecting the viral stars of the year, including:A conversation about The Kid Mero’s recent projects, including his Victory Light podcast and “7PM in Brooklyn,” his podcast with the basketball legend Carmelo AnthonyThe disgraced politician (and now Cameo star) George SantosThe popular Twitch streamer Kai CenatAbel Tesfaye, a.k.a. the Weeknd, a star and creator of the HBO drama “The Idol”The basketball firestarter Draymond GreenGerry Turner, a.k.a. the Golden BachelorThe pop-drill rapper Ice SpiceThe TikTok food critic Keith LeeSnack of the weekConnect 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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      Can One of Opera’s Greatest Singers Get Her Voice Back?

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      Anita Rachvelishvili was pregnant when she began to lose her voice.It was the middle of 2021. She and her husband had tried for years to conceive, and it seemed like a child would be the storybook ending to being forced to slow down during the pandemic. Rachvelishvili, the Georgian mezzo-soprano, had spent the previous decade crisscrossing the world, blazing through some of the most difficult parts in opera.She made her name with a potent combination of capacious sound and interpretive subtlety. In 2018, Riccardo Muti, the pre-eminent Verdi conductor, called her “without doubt the best Verdi mezzo-soprano today on the planet.” Peter Gelb, the Metropolitan Opera’s general manager, recently said: “She was the greatest dramatic mezzo-soprano singing. It seemed there was no big, meaty role she couldn’t tackle.”Rachvelishvili sang Carmen, the role of her 2009 breakthrough, hundreds of times, and was scheduled to ring in 2024 as Bizet’s classic antiheroine in the splashy premiere of a new production at the Met.Instead, the show will go on without her. Rachvelishvili, 39, will spend New Year’s Eve at home in Tbilisi, where she was born, as she tries to reconstruct the fundamentals of the voice that brought her stardom and then abandoned her.“It is a nightmare, a total nightmare,” she said over dinner in September at a rustic restaurant nestled in the woods outside the city. “I’ve had two years of nightmare at this point.”Transforming the body and causing sweeping hormonal changes, pregnancy is rarely easy for opera singers, who rely on a carefully calibrated physical apparatus to dependably produce huge waves of unamplified sound. Rachvelishvili had not quite felt herself in the handful of performances she did while she was carrying the baby — her voice, she said, came out “scratchy and strange” — but she assumed things would return to normal after the birth.Lioness: Rachvelishvili at the Tbilisi State Conservatory, where she studied after auditioning with a Whitney Houston song.Daro Sulakauri for The New York TimesShe delivered her daughter, Lileana, in late November 2021, and something still felt different, though the lower part of her voice was, if anything, bigger than before. She figured she could handle the low-lying role of Marfa in Mussorgsky’s “Khovanshchina,” which she was to rehearse in Paris just a month later — months sooner than many singers return after giving birth.“It was the worst decision of my life,” she said, sitting alongside Otari Maisuradze, her husband — who became her vocal coach, too, after a rift with her teacher early in her crisis.Over a week of conversations, meals, walks and drives in and around Tbilisi, Rachvelishvili described how rushing back to the stage had helped set off an agonizing dance of one step forward, two steps back. Seeming improvement would be countered by dispiriting nights, and the increased size of her low notes was offset by the sudden disappearance of her high ones. Her once-steady confidence and smooth column of sound were both fractured.“You start having big panic attacks, then you lose control completely,” she said. “Of breath, of body. Everything.”Her husband spoke softly. “She was my lioness,” he said. “I am very proud I have very strong women in my family. But these two years, with this trouble, she became like a little cat.”A VOICE IS A MYSTERIOUS, largely invisible amalgam of body and psyche — of tiny, vibrating vocal cords; muscles that provide support for the breath; cavities through which sound resonates; and the self-belief to fearlessly deploy it all. Problems are inevitable, though the path to overcoming them is uncertain, since medical interventions can be chancy. And talking about them is still stigmatized within the industry, perhaps in part because responses to artists are already so subjective that illness or injury can cloud later evaluation even if the difficulty has been “fixed.”“Every singer, at some point, will have some kind of vocal issue,” said the soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, who made an arduous recovery from surgery on her cords earlier in her career. “It’s like football players: Every quarterback has some shoulder issue at some point.”Rachvelishvili warming up with her husband, who has become her vocal coach.Daro Sulakauri for The New York TimesMaria Callas couldn’t undo her instrument’s unraveling. In an essay about her, the conductor and critic Will Crutchfield once wrote, “There is no example of an important operatic singer encountering serious vocal problems and returning to form.”That is true, to a point. The tenor Jonas Kaufmann has been open about vocal issues, yet has managed to keep singing challenging parts at a high level. But Rolando Villazón, another 21st-century star tenor, never recovered from his troubles.“Every singer goes through that fear of the high notes, or feeling not really comfortable with your voice,” Rachvelishvili said. “I just need to have this battle with myself, by myself. Nobody else can help me. I need to remember how I was, and how Anita did it.”THOUGH SHE CAME TO OPERA LATE — she sang a Whitney Houston song when she auditioned for conservatory — Rachvelishvili was not merely an intuitive natural talent but also a smart, dedicated musician. She slowly built on a firm technique and stuck to her relatively low signature role as she waited and worked.“I sang Carmen for so many years because I didn’t have easy high notes,” she said. “I took time to learn how to do those notes so that the body knew what it was doing.”Those notes grew stronger without her pushing, and she practiced diligently to incorporate the nuances, colors and seductive soft singing that set her apart from many who shared her repertoire. She sang the wild Azucena in Verdi’s “Il Trovatore” with startling refinement in 2018 at the Met, where her triumphs culminated in a scorching run as the Princesse de Bouillon in Cilea’s “Adriana Lecouvreur” early in 2019.Rachvelishvili and Otari Maisuradze with their daughter, Lileana, who was born in November 2021. Rachvelishvili’s vocal problems began when she was pregnant.Daro Sulakauri for The New York TimesHer future seemed limitless. In addition to Azucena and Verdi’s Eboli and Amneris, major roles in “Les Troyens,” “Werther,” “La Favorite” and “La Gioconda” were on the horizon. With her powerful high notes, sumptuous tone and onstage intensity, it seemed that Wagner’s Ortrud, Fricka, Kundry and even Isolde — the province of big-voiced sopranos — might be possible.Then came the pandemic. Rachvelishvili had struggled to get pregnant in the past, but she said that the drastic reduction in travel and stress in 2020, as well as the hormones prescribed by her doctor, helped it happen.Fearful of losing the baby, she was cautious in the early days of the pregnancy, but she sang some performances in mid-2021. Muti said of their concert “Aida” in Italy that summer, “She was able in the past to hold long phrases without any problem, and now going in the high register she had some difficulty.”Still, he added, “you could feel, here and there, the great singer.”When she sang “Khovanshchina” in Paris so soon after giving birth, it was possible, because of the role’s low center of vocal gravity, to believe she was back in her old shape — even if a short excerpt posted by the opera company suggests that her tone had grown more fragile, her vibrato wider, even beyond her high notes.“It was like a completely different body,” Rachvelishvili said, “with a completely different voice.”“It was like a completely different body,” Rachvelishvili said of performing after giving birth, “with a completely different voice.”Daro Sulakauri for The New York TimesIn the past, her muscular support had originated down by her pelvis, but that was disrupted by the pregnancy and birth. While she searched for a new approach, her next engagement, “Adriana Lecouvreur” at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan in early 2022, was disastrous. The Princesse’s high notes, once easy for her, refused to come. At the premiere, Rachvelishvili fled the theater in despair before her curtain call, something she had never done.“It was the most horrible experience of my life, not being able to sing the way I wanted,” she said. “I couldn’t go out after a performance like that. It’s not the old Anita they’re used to, or I’m used to. I’m not going out; it’s insulting to them, to La Scala.”She canceled the rest of the run, then moved on to Munich, where she had a long rehearsal period before she was supposed to sing her first Didon in Berlioz’s “Les Troyens.” A doctor saw inflammation on her vocal cords; it could have been allergies, acid reflux, a hormonal imbalance or laryngitis, or some combination of those factors.Unable to produce high notes or offer the elegant control of volume and texture for which she was admired, she left before the premiere. She began to lose faith in herself, which set off a vicious cycle with her physical problems.“I said to my therapist that I’d kill myself if it wasn’t for the baby,” she recalled. “I have a baby to take care of.”She was also her family’s breadwinner. Maisuradze had long ago devoted himself to supporting her career, and even star singers are freelancers.“The responsibility is huge, because everybody depends on me working,” she said. “I have my parents to take care of, and my family, and the baby. People said that if I couldn’t sing, I should just stop. And I said, ‘Will you feed my family if I stop?’ I have to at least try and try and try. I need to bring some money to the table.”But in summer 2022, she had to drop “Cavalleria Rusticana” in London and “Aida” in Salzburg before they opened. Leaving the “Aida,” Rachvelishvili released a statement citing back pain after the birth of her daughter and asking “all haters and even some colleagues” to “please stop inventing stories about me losing my voice or nonsense like this.”She retreated to Tbilisi to work. And early in fall 2022, she was able to creditably sing the generally low Dalila in Saint-Saëns’s “Samson et Dalila” in Naples, though her high notes were still problematic.“I said to my therapist that I’d kill myself if it wasn’t for the baby,” Rachvelishvili recalled. “I have a baby to take care of.”Daro Sulakauri for The New York TimesThe tenor Brian Jagde, her co-star in that “Samson” and several other productions during this period, sometimes went so far as to anchor her during scenes with a hand at her waist, to lend the lower muscular support that she no longer felt internally.“There’s nothing harder to watch than a person onstage with you that you believe in so much, and she’s struggling,” he said. “There were clear signs the top wasn’t working like she wanted it to, and she was working desperately to make it work. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn’t.”She canceled a fall run of Verdi’s “Don Carlo” at the Met, but arrived there to sing “Aida” in December. Rachvelishvili thought the first performance went passably, but the company’s administration disagreed.“It was obvious that she was not the same singer — at least temporarily not the same singer — who had conquered our stage so brilliantly up to that point,” Gelb said, and he decided to remove her from the coming “Carmen” and a solo recital that was to have taken place earlier this month.“I had a painful discussion with her in my office, because I wanted her to hear it from me,” he said. “I said that we needed to wait until she was back singing well again, and then we’d be happy to have her return. She had a hard time accepting that.”EARLY THIS YEAR, RACHVELISHVILI was able to get through another “Samson,” in Berlin, and a new role, Charlotte in Massenet’s “Werther,” in Athens, with her body feeling more dependable. But when she returned to Munich in the spring for “Aida,” she began having terrifying panic attacks onstage, paralyzed by fear of the high notes, and left after four of eight performances.“She’s such a tough character, but she’s human,” Jagde said. “That was what I saw progress for her in a negative way: less belief in herself because of what was happening. The physical affected the mental for her.”“On 50 seconds, we are working two or three days,” Maisuradze said of Rachvelishvili’s practice routine. “They must be beautiful, the voice and colors, and stylistically true.”Daro Sulakauri for The New York TimesDropping out of all her engagements after early June, she had minor surgeries for stomach problems and to lessen the effects of acid reflux, and another procedure to remove what she said was a small polyp on her vocal cords. Since then, she has been at home in Tbilisi with her husband and daughter. Lileana, she said, is “worth everything. She’s even worth never singing again.”But she still hopes she can have both. Rachvelishvili and Maisuradze have been painstakingly reviewing her instrument and technique, going through scores phrase by phrase and restitching together her different registers, returning to the basics.“On 50 seconds, we are working two or three days,” Maisuradze said. “They must be beautiful, the voice and colors, and stylistically true.”Of her high register, Rachvelishvili said this month: “It’s not as perfect as I want, or as I had it a few years ago, honestly. But it’s much easier; it’s there; it’s not difficult anymore to take them.”The clock is ticking: A new role, Laura in Ponchielli’s “La Gioconda,” is scheduled for April in Naples, before a revival of “Aida” in Munich. Noting her voice’s solid technical foundation, Muti was optimistic.“She is young,” he said, “so she will come back. We are waiting with great enthusiasm.”Rachvelishvili has fought her panic with therapy, antidepressants and meditation, but it still lurks. “All the physical problems, the vocal problems, are gone,” she said. “Right now, I’m just battling with myself and my head to make sure that when I go onstage soon, I will feel calm inside. The joy of being back is so big that it overtakes me sometimes.”She described a recent video call with her manager. “I was doing a high note in Dalila’s second aria,” she said, “and he stopped me: ‘I see the fear in your eyes. Don’t be afraid, just go for it. You can do it without fear in you.’ And I did it, and it was perfect.” More