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      Can Berlin Really Afford 3 ‘Magic Flutes’ in a Single Week?

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      Each of the city’s opera houses is presenting a different production of the Mozart classic. With arts cuts looming, it looks like a last hurrah.Opera has always tended toward grandeur. Berlin, home to three world-class opera houses, regularly takes things to the next level.This week, for example, each of those houses is putting on a different production of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.” At one, larger-than-life serpents slither across the stage, spurting real fire from their nostrils. At another, animated pink elephants flying across a giant screen deliver a character to his salvation.But with cuts to the city arts budget looming, this looks increasingly like a last hurrah for a system of largess under threat.A scene from the Staatsoper’s “Magic Flute,” which reconstructs the staging of a 19th-century production.Monika RittershausNext week, Berlin’s Senate looks set to pass a 2025 budget that will slash funding to the arts scene, which relies heavily on public money. Institutions large and small have warned that these cuts put Berlin’s identity as a cultural capital on the chopping block.According to a plan released last month, culture funding, which makes up just over 2 percent of the municipal budget, will be reduced by around 13 percent, or about 130 million euros (roughly $136 million).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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      At Opening Night at La Scala, Opera Is the Center of the Universe

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      Television reporters stood shoulder to shoulder delivering breathless, minute-by-minute commentary, part of a pack of more than 120 journalists from 10 countries.Celebrities, politicians and titans of industry walked the red carpet past paparazzi and officers standing sentry with capes, sashes, swords and plumed hats.Outside, protesters used firecrackers, smoke bombs and even manure as they sought to seize on the occasion to draw attention to a variety of causes.It was not a global summit, a Hollywood premiere or a royal procession. It was the start of the new opera season at Teatro alla Scala in Milan.Opera may be starved for attention in much of the world. But at La Scala, the storied theater that gave world premieres of works by Donizetti, Puccini, Rossini and Verdi, opera can still feel like the center of the cultural universe. It remains a matter of national pride and patrimony, a political football and an obsession for devoted fans.“This is sacred for us,” said the critic Alberto Mattioli, who writes for La Stampa, an Italian newspaper. “Opera is our religion.”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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      Timothée Chalamet Sings Live for the Bob Dylan Biopic, ‘A Complete Unknown’

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      The actor’s vocals so impressed the film’s director that he used the live recordings, instead of those prerecorded in a studio. Here’s a look at other actors who have hit their own high notes in musical biopics.In one trailer for the upcoming Bob Dylan biopic, “A Complete Unknown,” a fan pleads with the musician, played by Timothée Chalamet, saying that she can’t hear the music at his sold-out concert.Chalamet, his eyes hidden behind Dylan’s trademark Ray Ban sunglasses, his hair a frizzy mop, responds: “I’ll sing louder.”Biopics have often relied on creative license to portray a star, but Chalamet’s words are not just blowin’ in the wind. The songs in “Unknown,” directed by James Mangold, have resonated through generations, and Chalamet’s voice was so impressive that his live vocals — sung while performing in character — were kept for the final cut.That is not the industry standard. Some films use an original artist’s track while an actor lip-syncs. When actors in biopics do sing, it is common for them to record the vocals in a studio and then overdub them onscreen. Singing live on camera can leave a performance falling flat, especially if the actor is not a trained vocalist.But when done well, live vocals can add a touch of realism.“The idea was to get a little bit different sound in each different venue by using practical microphones from the period,” Tod Maitland, the sound mixer for “Unknown,” said in an interview with Variety this month. “That helped create a nice tapestry of sounds. But Timmy went 100 percent live. It was pretty amazing.”It’s not Chalamet’s first time at the mic — he sang in the 2023 film “Wonka,” and attended LaGuardia High School, a performing arts school in New York City.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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      Match the Taylor Swift Song to the Poem Inspired By Her Music

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      In honor of Madison Cloudfeather Nye Somehow the voices twined around a young mind encouraging gentle stanzas, open endings, even in a Texas town where they wanted you to testify before cashing a check. Heck with that, boys. I’m heading out in my little gray boots, slim volumes of poetry in my holster, William of […] More

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      Morgan Wallen Pleads to Reduced Charges in Chair-Throwing Incident

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      The country superstar agreed to misdemeanor reckless endangerment charges and a week at a D.U.I. education center.The country superstar Morgan Wallen pleaded guilty on Thursday in a Nashville courtroom to misdemeanor reckless endangerment charges stemming from an arrest in April, in which he was accused of throwing a chair from the sixth-story roof of a downtown bar.In exchange for prosecutors dropping the felony counts of reckless endangerment against Mr. Wallen, the singer, 31, entered a plea agreement that requires him to spend seven days at a D.U.I. education center and be on probation for two years.“Upon the successful completion of his probation, the charges will be eligible for dismissal and expungement,” Worrick Robinson IV, a lawyer for Mr. Wallen, said in a statement following the court appearance. “Mr. Wallen has cooperated fully with authorities throughout these last eight months, directly communicating and apologizing to all involved. Mr. Wallen remains committed to making a positive impact through his music and foundation.”The chart-topping performer had just opened his latest blockbuster stadium tour earlier this year when he was arrested and charged for throwing the chair from atop Chief’s, a bar on lower Broadway owned by a fellow country star, Eric Church. The chair landed near Nashville police officers, authorities said, and staff members at Chief’s told them Mr. Wallen was responsible.Mr. Wallen was previously arrested and charged in May 2020 with public intoxication and disorderly conduct in downtown Nashville. Months later, he was dropped from an appearance on “Saturday Night Live” for not following Covid-19 protocols after social media footage showed him doing shots and kissing fans at a bar in the lead-up to his appearance.The next year, immediately following the release of his breakout album, “Dangerous: The Double Album,” Mr. Wallen faced widespread but temporary industry backlash when TMZ published a video of him referring to a friend with a racial slur. Mr. Wallen cited a night of hard drinking for his “ignorant” language, calling it “hour 72 of a 72-hour bender,” and said he checked himself into rehab for 30 days following the incident.“You know, just trying to figure it out,” Mr. Wallen said on “Good Morning America” as he returned to the spotlight. “Why am I acting this way? Do I have an alcohol problem? Do I have a deeper issue?”His next album, “One Thing at a Time,” did not suffer commercially, spending a total of 19 weeks at No. 1. Last month, he won entertainer of the year, the top honor, at the Country Music Association Awards, though he did not attend the ceremony. More

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      YoungBoy Never Broke Again Sentenced to 23 Months in Prison For Gun Possession

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      The rapper, whose real name is Kentrell Gaulden, admitted to possessing guns as a felon in Louisiana. He faced a maximum sentence of 25 years.YoungBoy Never Broke Again, one of the most-streamed hip-hop artists in the United States, has been sentenced to nearly two years in prison by a federal judge in Utah for possessing weapons as a felon.The rapper, whose real name is Kentrell D. Gaulden, was sentenced on Tuesday to 23 months in prison on gun charges related to a case in Louisiana. Mr. Gaulden, 25, was also sentenced to five years of probation and fined $200,000 for a gun charge in a separate Utah case.Federal law bars gun ownership by felons. In 2017, Mr. Gaulden was convicted of aggravated assault with a firearm, a felony, in a Louisiana court. Details of that case could not be independently confirmed early Wednesday.In a plea agreement filed in the United States District Court in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Mr. Gaulden said that he had been in possession of three guns since his earlier felony conviction.In the first instance, Mr. Gaulden admitted to possessing two guns while filming a music video in Baton Rouge, La., in September 2020. In the second, a semiautomatic pistol was found in the master bedroom of his Utah home during a search, according to the plea agreement.He faced a maximum prison sentence of 10 years in the Louisiana case and 15 years in the Utah case.“This has been a long road that involved extensive litigation and ultimately extensive negotiation,” Mr. Gaulden’s lawyers said in a statement on Wednesday night. “Kentrell’s defense team is very happy for Kentrell and we look forward to his many future successes.”Mr. Gaulden, who is best known as NBA YoungBoy, has legions of dedicated fans. Many of his songs receive hundreds of millions of streams on Spotify and YouTube.But he has a history of legal problems.In 2022, Mr. Gaulden was found not guilty in a similar gun possession case in California. Police in the Los Angeles area had found a pistol and ammunition in the car he was driving. His lawyers argued that he did not know that the weapon was in the car at the time, and that his fingerprints were not found on the gun. More

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      How a Soprano With Dyslexia Rose to the Heights of Opera

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      Elza van den Heever, a star of “Die Frau Ohne Schatten” at the Metropolitan Opera, no longer sees dyslexia as a hindrance — just a different way of learning.When the soprano Elza van den Heever was hired to sing the role of the Empress in Strauss’s “Die Frau Ohne Schatten” at the Metropolitan Opera, she was elated. It was a dream role — the kind that could cement her reputation as a leading singer.But van den Heever was also nervous. She has struggled with dyslexia since her childhood, in South Africa. And “Frau” is one of opera’s most daunting works, not least because of its dense libretto.“I just sort of assumed in life that I would never be able to sing this kind of complicated music,” she said. “I knew this would be my Mount Everest.”For three years, van den Heever followed a rigorous routine, learning the “Frau” music five to 12 measures at a time and studying the text “as if I were a toddler learning a new language,” she said.Then the pandemic hit, and the Met’s revival of “Frau” was called off.“I was devastated,” she said, “100-percent gutted.”Finally, van den Heever is getting her moment. “Frau” was rescheduled, and is now onstage at the Met through Dec. 19. Van den Heever has won praise for her shimmering voice and seamless virtuosity, and this run of “Frau” has been hailed by critics as a must-see opera.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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      Shadow of a Childless Woman: The Mythic Roots of Strauss’s ‘Frau’

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      What’s behind the strange emphasis on childlessness in “Die Frau ohne Schatten,” the Strauss-Hofmannsthal opera now at the Met? Look to the ancients.Although the music of “Die Frau ohne Schatten” (“The Woman Without a Shadow”) is often transcendentally beautiful, it is among the least performed of the Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal operas at the Metropolitan Opera. Its relatively rare appearance on the Met stage is, I believe, in large part because of its weird, somewhat incomprehensible, and to some contemporary tastes offensive, libretto. The opera compounds the felony by being (at over four hours) the longest of all the Strauss-Hofmannsthal operas. Only “Der Rosenkavalier” comes close, but as “Rosenkavalier” is the best loved of all the pair’s operas, the length of “Frau” cannot be the only culprit.It’s the libretto. Any summary immediately brings to mind Anna Russell’s satire on the convoluted plot of Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen,” which she excused by remarking, “But that’s the beauty of Grand Opera: you can do anything so long as you sing it.”The “Frau” libretto concerns the Empress, the daughter of the invisible spirit god Keikobad and a mortal woman, who has married the Emperor (a mortal man) but cannot bear children. The sign of her defining lack is that she has no shadow; because she is part spirit, she doesn’t have enough substance to generate a shadow or a child.Many Strauss aficionados have long been uncomfortable with the opera’s strange emphasis on childlessness. But the return of “Die Frau” to the Met’s stage (through Dec. 19) comes at a fraught moment when audiences are dealing with abortion and transgender issues, not to mention concerns over a declining birthrate. They might be apt to criticize it for what they see as a natalist stance. Men and women, however, have been caught up in the convoluted dance of mortality and fertility since the dawn of history, and “Frau” draws upon that tradition, allowing us to see our present preoccupations in both the ancient wisdom and the ancient folly that still bedevil us.Mortality and fertility become real issues when the Empress learns that unless she gets a shadow within three days, her father, the god, will turn her husband, the Emperor, to stone. So she goes to the world of mortals to try to buy a shadow from the malcontented wife of a very nice but very poor man who wants children. He is named Barak, and he’s a dyer, which can be heard, for those listening in English translation, as “a dier,” one who dies, which is the defining characteristic of the dyer and his wife.Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Richard Strauss in 1912. Their opera “Die Frau ohne Schatten” premiered in 1919, in the wreckage of World War I.Fine Art/Heritage Images, via Getty ImagesWe 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