Music

The beloved author of children’s books is experimenting with new forms, alongside starry collaborators, at the Kennedy Center.WASHINGTON — Do you know the words to the Queen of the Night’s stratospheric showcase from “The Magic Flute”? Maybe the Duke’s famous tune from “Rigoletto”? Carmen’s Habanera?No, not those words. The other ones: the words, at least, as they are now known to my 6-year-old daughter and the hundreds of children who took grown-ups like me to the Kennedy Center here recently for the premiere of “The Ice Cream Truck Is Broken! & Other Emotional Arias,” an experiment, including a short new work by the composer Carlos Simon, in what it might mean to draw a very young and impossibly demanding audience into a life in opera.See, you might think that Carmen is relating her views on love, but no. Listen closely, and you’ll find that the singer should have shared her cotton candy with her friends, and absolutely will … tomorrow. “La donna è mobile”? That’s about how milk squirts out your nose if you happen to laugh at exactly the wrong time. The Queen’s aria? That’s still about anger, but it now invokes something far worse than the vengeance of hell.“This bicycle,” it begins, in a fit of preschool pique, “is such a poo-poo vehicle.”The director Felicia Curry, left, with Willems during a rehearsal for “Don’t Let the Pigeon Sing Up Late!,” a short new opera created with the composer Carlos Simon.Lexey Swall for The New York TimesWillems and Simon reunited after their first opera effort, “SLOPERA!,” also at the Kennedy Center.Lexey Swall for The New York TimesOpera’s great composers have a new librettist, and he is almost certainly the only person who could induce an institution like the Kennedy Center to do something like this, let alone get Renée Fleming to join him in hosting it; inspire a quintet of young singers to ham their way through it; and persuade Simon, one of the busiest composers around, to crown the show with a 20-minute piece that gives an attention-seeking, picture-book Pigeon the prima donna spotlight it has surely always craved.The writer for it all? Mo Willems, who, it turns out, really loves opera!“The commonalities between what my industry, or my main industry, does and what opera does are incredible,” said Willems, a six-time Emmy Award-winning former Sesame Street writer, who has earned three Caldecott Honors for picture books and reigns as a near-deity in children’s literature.“It’s big emotions,” he added during an interview at the Kennedy Center before the premiere. “It’s direct communication. It’s interior dialogue. It’s self-discovery. And both forms really have been pushed off to the side of the mainstream, and I think that they have more power that way.”WILLEMS HAS ALWAYS BEEN a broader artist than just a writer of picture books, though that task alone is such that he calls it “as easy as describing the history of Byzantium in three words.” Some of his most celebrated characters — who include a venturesome plushie called Knuffle Bunny, the on-and-off best friends Elephant and Piggie, and that insatiable, inimitable Pigeon — had already starred in musicals that he had written before he formalized his long association with the Kennedy Center in 2019, when he became its education artist in residence. That three-year position coincided with the pandemic, to which he responded with invaluable “Lunch Doodles” videos, but it still let him explore a range of genres, including symphonic music, which he said “has always been important to me.”“Beethoven’s Fifth is the easiest example,” he explained, “but it’s basically the arc of an episode of television, or a movie: ‘Ba-ba-ba-baaam,’ oh, it’s exciting — and then you take the theme, you take the theme, and then you build with it. So when I was writing a show called ‘Codename: Kids Next Door,’ which is a silly sort of action comedy, I would literally write to the symphony.”Siphokazi Molteno, left, during a rehearsal for “Don’t Let the Pigeon Sing Up Late!”Lexey Swall for The New York TimesA rehearsal for “Don’t Let the Pigeon Sing Up Late!,” which is based on Willems’s book “Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late!”Lexey Swall for The New York TimesFor the National Symphony Orchestra, Willems painted giant abstractions to accompany a cycle of Beethoven’s nine symphonies, and he worked with the musician Ben Folds to adapt one of his books, “Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs,” for the concert hall. Hearing plans for “Goldilocks” led Tim O’Leary, the general director of the Washington National Opera and a Willems-reading father of three, to inquire about a commission.At their first meeting, Willems was “feigning ignorance” about opera, O’Leary recalled, but the author quickly sent him a copy of an Elephant and Piggie book — “I Really Like Slop!” — with the inscription “Tim, this book really sings.” By their second encounter, Willems had the libretto in his head, a sketch of the characters in concert dress and a title: “SLOPERA!”“Obviously, once it was called the ‘SLOPERA!’ we had to do it,” O’Leary said.Willems says that opera is similar to picture books in that in both cases, the text cannot stand on its own.Lexey Swall for The New York Times“SLOPERA!” could only be performed live outdoors on account of the pandemic, but an indoor recording, with piano accompaniment, was shown virtually to more than 300,000 schoolchildren.” Piggie gets Gerald the Elephant to try slop, a stinky green delicacy among porcine foodies. He does, after his initial refusals upset his companion, and he endures the consequences in something like a bel canto mad (or death) scene. He recovers, though, and tells Piggie that while he might not like her food, he still likes her. Scored cutely by Simon, it is funny, catchy and in the end moving, a paean to friendship and trying new things.“Everything that I do as a picture book writer is reductive,” Willems said, reflecting on what writing his first libretto taught him, aside from the importance of placing consonants carefully. “If you look at a picture book manuscript, and you can understand it, it has too many words. If you look at just the illustrations, and you can understand it, the drawings are too detailed. They both have to be incomprehensible. It’s very similar with writing an opera, that the words that you’re using have to be dependent on the music, but the music has to be dependent on the words, and either of them shouldn’t really be able to stand alone.”WILLEMS CAUGHT THE opera bug and started planning a follow-up, “Don’t Let the Pigeon Sing Up Late!,” which O’Leary said was initially conceived as a monodrama for the inquisitive, intransigent Pigeon — akin to an avian “Erwartung.” Deborah Rutter, the Kennedy Center’s president, also suggested that Willems collaborate with Fleming, the center’s artistic adviser at large.Fleming sent Willems reams of classic arias to listen to, select from and rewrite to fit how kids might experience emotions like joy, disgust or shame. “They are sung beautifully,” Fleming said of the results. “They are sung in all seriousness. It’s just the text. A, it’s in English, and B, it’s really devised for 6-year-olds.”Curry, center, preparing the premiere of “Don’t Let the Pigeon Sing Up Late!”Lexey Swall for The New York TimesSimon, right, the composer of “Don’t Let the Pigeon Sing Up Late!”Lexey Swall for The New York TimesSmushed together under the title “The Ice Cream Truck Is Broken!” so that nine rewritten arias surrounded the Pigeon opera, the hourlong show ended up being a bit of a mishmash, as if the remarkable sum of resources being drawn from all over the Kennedy Center — not least, its comedy budget — were being thrown around to see what stuck.The arias didn’t quite land, to judge by the polite but not thrilled reactions of the children sitting near me. Dressed to the nines, Willems and Fleming introduced them, laboring over a running joke about an “opera song” really being called an “aria.” Felicia Curry, a leading Washington actress, directed with a light touch, sharing with her collaborators a faith in the music itself to connect. Though the early-career singers — Suzannah Waddington, Siphokazi Molteno, Oznur Tuluoglu, Jonathan Pierce Rhodes, Shea Owens — were amplified and could not possibly have sung more clearly or enthusiastically, it was still hard for my young assistant either to follow the lyrics with her ears, or to sound out the supertitles in time. I found some of the texts ingenious, but it all felt a bit too earnest, too consciously instructional to inspire.She was there, in any case, to see a bird sing; and sing the Pigeon did. After eight of the arias and a fair bit of fidgeting came the Willems-Simon piece, which is based on “Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late!,” a past-bedtime classic in which the Pigeon works through a repertoire of tactics to ward off sleepy time. Tuluoglu, a young soprano whose most recent prior role was Barbarina at the Annapolis Opera, took on the title character. “When you train, you have to be able to sing Mozart, you gotta be able to be a pigeon,” she said before the show.Willems adds two cousins to the Pigeon’s flock, and in turn the pajama-clad birds try out a trio of techniques — “Negotiation,” “Guilt” and “Tantrum,” as their arias are called — on an audience that is encouraged to yell back in denial. Simon’s score is a delight, propulsive and charming with a swishing jazz number and a lullaby ripped from Brahms. The kids enjoyed it, and so did the adults.Now, Willems hopes to write the libretto of a full-scale opera.Lexey Swall for The New York TimesTHE HOLY GRAIL of so-called family or education programming must surely be something along those lines, but in the experience of this frustrated musical parent, the recipe is often wrong. Willems and his collaborators understand the same thing as their goal, although as the author said, “no one is a true expert in children’s, Al Yankovic-ing, spoofing opera pieces.” Experimentation is required.“You have to approach it with all the same seriousness” as a main-stage opera, O’Leary said, “and get all the greatest people involved, because actually kids are the toughest audience, the most discerning, and if you can make it work, then you know you’ve got something.”Willems has long written books that transcend generational divides: my children love them because they are silly, and I love them because they make me a sillier father than I would ever be without one in my hand. As a librettist — a description that must now be added to all his other job titles, as he enjoys the collaborative nature of opera so much that he hopes to write a full-scale piece — he inevitably thinks along the same lines. His arias, he said, were for me and my children alike.“She already thinks it’s cool because it’s great music,” Willems said, nodding to my daughter. “You have a history to it, and by stripping that history away hopefully you’ll listen to it differently. You’re coming into it with preconceived notions, and these guys aren’t, and then there’s somebody in the middle who just, like, saw a lot of Chuck Jones films, and has a vague sense of it.”“I struggle,” he added, “with the idea that a grown-up would bring one of the younger people in their lives, with the expectation that that person is going to learn something, but that the person bringing them isn’t. I want everybody to be open to a new experience.” More

Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicWhen a collection of Jai Paul demos leaked online in 2013, it had the makings of a celebration, not a catastrophe. Paul had previously released two rapturously received singles, and anticipation for his music was high. The songs on that collection were shared widely, and beloved. But rather than capitalize on the good will generated by the unintended release, Paul retreated, making almost no public noise or appearances for the following decade.This year, he returned — first, with a pair of performances at Coachella, and then a pair of smaller headlining concerts in New York. He was shy and a little awkward onstage, but the music he played was sure-footed. Whether it was the conclusion of his prior arc, or a prelude to a new era, wasn’t clear.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about Paul’s anti-career trajectory, the persistence of fan enthusiasm for him even in his absence, and how mystery on the internet has changed over the past couple of decades.Guests:Lindsay Zoladz, a pop music critic for The New York Times and author of The Amplifier newsletterJia Tolentino, a staff writer at The New YorkerConnect 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 [email protected]. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

Rounding out the far-from-traditional class of 2023: George Michael, Sheryl Crow, Rage Against the Machine and the Spinners.The reclusive (but freshly relevant) experimental pop singer Kate Bush, the one-of-one rapper Missy Elliott and the 90-year-old country stalwart Willie Nelson are among this year’s genre-spanning inductees to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The organization behind the museum and annual ceremony announced the lineup on Wednesday, underlining how the new class reflected “the diverse artists and sounds that define rock & roll.”Rounding out the seven acts voted in by more than 1,000 artists, historians and music industry professionals are the pop singer George Michael, who died in 2016; the 1970s soul group the Spinners, who had been nominated three times prior; the platinum-selling 1990s pop-rock singer Sheryl Crow; and the politically rambunctious rap-rock band Rage Against the Machine, who crossed the threshold after its fifth time on the ballot.The Rock Hall ceremony will be held on Friday, Nov. 3, at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.Furthering a pattern that has taken shape in recent years — following steady criticism against the Rock Hall for its lack of inclusion, especially among race and gender lines — none of the musicians inducted this time fit neatly into the most narrow strictures of what constitutes rock. But as the genre and the institution continue to evolve, those behind the scenes have proved increasingly welcome to honoring rappers, pop singers and country artists like Dolly Parton, who attempted to remove herself from consideration last year but was voted in anyway.In a statement accompanying the induction announcement on Wednesday, John Sykes, the chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, said, “We are honored that this November’s induction ceremony in New York will coincide with two milestones in music culture; the 90th birthday of Willie Nelson and the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip-hop.”Nelson — who celebrated his birthday over the weekend with a concert featuring Neil Young, Miranda Lambert and Snoop Dogg — had been eligible for the Rock Hall since 1987, 25 years after the release of his first commercial recording and six years before he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Like Michael, best known for hits like “Faith” and “Freedom! ’90,” this was Nelson’s first time on the ballot.Bush, who has not released an album in more than a decade, had been nominated three times prior. But she may have received a boost thanks to renewed interest in her music since last year, when a placement in the Netflix show “Stranger Things” sent her 1985 single “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” back onto pop radio and to a new peak of No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100.Elliott will become the first woman in rap to be included in the Rock Hall, following previous recognition for artists like Run-DMC, Beastie Boys, N.W.A, Public Enemy and Jay-Z. “I want to say this is HUGE not for just me but all my Sisters in HIPHOP,” she wrote in a string of tweets on Wednesday. “this door is now OPEN to showcase the hard work & what many of us contribute to MUSIC. I have cried all morning because I am GRATEFUL.”Voters passed over more traditional rock bands on the latest ballot like Soundgarden, the White Stripes, Iron Maiden and Joy Division, as well as the singer-songwriters Warren Zevon and Cyndi Lauper. The rap group A Tribe Called Quest also failed to make the cut.Yet outside of those inducted as performers, the ceremony this fall will also celebrate the hip-hop pioneer DJ Kool Herc and the guitarist Link Wray (awarded for “musical influence”); the singer Chaka Khan, the composer and producer Al Kooper and the songwriter Bernie Taupin (for “musical excellence”); and the “Soul Train” creator, producer and host Don Cornelius (posthumously receiving the Ahmet Ertegun award for executives). More

Decades after those wild nights at Max’s Kansas City and her many rock-star romances, she is making the case for herself.Bebe Buell was back in town.On a recent evening, about 75 people gathered at the National Arts Club, a private club in a landmark building on East 20th Street in Manhattan, to see her read from her new memoir, “Rebel Soul: Musings, Music, & Magic,” and sing some of her songs.The neighborhood was familiar to Ms. Buell. Soon after she arrived in New York from Camp Lejeune, N.C., in 1972, she became a regular at Max’s Kansas City, the famed night spot just a few blocks away. At the time she was an 18-year-old model signed to the Eileen Ford Agency who lived at the St. Mary’s Residence on the Upper East Side. The place had a curfew enforced by nuns, but one night Ms. Buell slipped out and made her way to Max’s, where she would end up partying with Andy Warhol, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, and David Johansen and Johnny Thunders of the New York Dolls.She went from It Girl of Manhattan to Miss November in Playboy magazine. She had relationships with Todd Rundgren, Elvis Costello, Steven Tyler, Jimmy Page, Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart in the years when they did some of their best work, but she writes in her book that she was more than a muse and was unfairly labeled a groupie by the press.The people who went to see her at the National Arts Club seemed to feel the same way. One of them, Dick Wingate, a former music executive, said that, back in 1980, he had tried to get his colleagues at Epic Records to release Ms. Buell’s four-song EP, “Covers Girl,” but ran into resistance. “I really think she was a trailblazer in many ways,” Mr. Wingate said. “She just said, ‘I’m going to do what I’m going to do and I don’t care what people think,’ and it wasn’t easy at that point in time.”From left to right, Stevie Nicks, Rod Stewart and Bebe Buell at Regine’s in New York City, circa. 1977.GThese days, Ms. Buell, 69, lives near Nashville with her husband, James Wallerstein (stage name: Jimmy Walls), 56, a soft-spoken guitarist and director of concierge services at a luxury residential building. The couple said they had made the long drive to Manhattan in a rented S.U.V. with their two dogs, Chicken Burger, 15, and Lola, 11, in the back seat. Late Wednesday afternoon, in the high-ceiling suite where they were staying on the seventh floor of the National Arts Club, Ms. Buell was getting ready for the party.At 6 p.m. the early arrivals trickled into the brightly lit East Gallery on the ground floor. David Croland, a photographer and fashion illustrator, said he had met Ms. Buell in 1972, when he was hired to body-paint her for a Ziegfeld Follies-inspired benefit. “She was never a groupie,” he said. “She had her own groupies. She would just appear and people would line up.”He saw someone across the room: “Danny! Danny!” It was Danny Fields, a pivotal rock music figure who had managed or worked closely with Jim Morrison, the Stooges, the Velvet Underground and the Ramones. “She was a champion of discovering and allying herself with beautiful and talented and wonderful people,” Mr. Fields said of Ms. Buell. “She was smart, sexy and beautiful, with elegant taste. I never wondered why everyone was in love with her.”The guest of honor stepped into the room dressed in black: a Calvin Klein jacket, fringed opera gloves that she had made herself, and a vintage Norma Kamali skirt.“I’m nervous,” Ms. Buell said.Ms. Buell performs her songs accompanied by Gyasi Heus, left, and her husband, James Wallerstein.Leor Miller for The New York TimesShe planted herself at Mr. Wingate’s side. Long after the fact, she still appreciated his efforts on behalf of “Covers Girl,” which came out in 1981 on Rhino Records, then an independent label known for novelty releases.“When everybody in the business was wondering if that rock-star girlfriend, that Playboy girl, can be a rock person, or whatever, Dick Wingate had vision,” Ms. Buell said. “He was smart.”“Oh, Bebe,” he said, “you’re so sweet to say that.”“How am I going to make you proud tonight?” she said. “I’ve worked hard for this moment. I know that we can’t do records together anymore.”“You know, you’re a real inspiration to a lot of people.”“Don’t make me cry before I go on,” she said.The guests took their seats as Ms. Buell climbed onto a small stage.“I feel like I’m getting married here,” she said. “I’ve already cried twice. So I probably look like a wreck.”Someone in the crowd said, “Noooo!”“I’ve always been a ‘rebel, rebel,’ right?” Ms. Buell said, alluding to the David Bowie song. “My face is a mess.”Liv Tyler at the 1996 premiere of “Stealing Beauty,” flanked by her parents, Steven Tyler and Ms. Buell.GShe was joined onstage by a longtime friend, the publicist Liz Derringer, the ex-wife of the rock guitarist Rick Derringer. Decades ago she introduced Ms. Buell to a high school friend, Mr. Tyler, the lead singer of Aerosmith, who became the father of Ms. Buell’s daughter, the actress Liv Tyler.Ms. Derringer led Ms. Buell through some highlights of “Rebel Soul,” which covers her nights with various rockers as it charts her progress toward finding her own voice. The book also goes into what Ms. Buell describes as her “many experiences with extraterrestrial entities.” For the National Arts Club crowd, she mixed in claims of her U.F.O. encounters with stories about Mr. Rundgren and other exes.“I’ve been painted as this wild filly that was running around with the rock stars,” Ms. Buell said. “People don’t realize that wasn’t the reality of what was going on. I was a young girl that would talk her head off. I wanted Todd to be a boyfriend that didn’t go out with other women but that was impossible in those times.”“We were so young,” Ms. Derringer said, “and it was the early ’70s.”“I was 18, he was 23, and we were all gorgeous,” Ms. Buell said. “The hormones were raging. There was so much beauty in New York. When Johnny Thunders walked across the room when he was 19, it caused you to take a breath. The Italian stallion, just something about him. And he had on pink satin pants and my girlfriend’s boots!”“I also had a lot of platonic relationships,” she continued. “Friendships with Bowie and others that were deep.”Ms. Buell read a chapter on her friendship with Prince, whom she said she had met backstage in the mid-70s when Mr. Rundgren’s band Utopia was playing in Minneapolis. Prince was shy, not yet famous, and he told Ms. Buell that she would one day see his name in lights. Before they parted, according to her book, he whispered that he thought the pictures of her in Playboy were very pretty.Ms. Buell teared up as she finished the chapter: “I still cry about him and Bowie,” she said.Ms. Buell signs copies of her book after her performance.Leor Miller for The New York TimesMr. Wallerstein, carrying a Gibson acoustic guitar, stepped close to her, as did another guitarist, Gyasi Heus, who, with his flowing locks and red pants, looked as if he would have been at home in the Max’s Kansas City of yore. They played as Ms. Buell sang songs she had written with her husband and others in Nashville — “By a Woman,” “Cross My Legs” and “Can You Forgive,” among others.Toward the end of her set, she turned to her accompanists, saying, “All right, guys, I’m doing this a cappella.” After asking them not to leave the stage, she told the crowd: “I just think they should stay there, because they look so gorgeous. Gorgeous rock boys. There’s nothing like gorgeous rock boys!”The final song was “Superstar,” a 1971 hit for the Carpenters about a lonesome groupie pining away for a rock star. Ms. Buell encouraged everyone to join her for the chorus:Don’t you remember you told me you loved me, babyYou said you’d be coming back this way again, babyBaby, baby, baby, baby, oh, baby, I love you, I really do.Big applause.Ms. Buell’s last song was “Superstar,” a hit for the Carpenters in 1971.Leor Miller for The New York TimesBeverly Keel, a friend of Ms. Buell’s who is a dean at Middle Tennessee State University, said: “To me, her whole life has been defined by her relationships with other people. She’s Liv’s mom, Todd Rundgren’s girlfriend, Steven Tyler, mother of his child. And now she’s finally being recognized for who she’s been all along.”After signing copies of her book, Ms. Buell seemed ready to call it a night. “I’m done,” she said. “I got a 15-year-old dog upstairs. I’ve got to check on Chicken Burger and I’ve got to change clothes.”The entertainment journalist Roger Friedman, a longtime champion of Ms. Buell, had a suggestion: “You know what you need? You need an electric violin.”“Yeah, I could get that,” she said.“You need an electric violin,” he repeated. “That would be perfect.”“Well, you can’t overuse those suckers,” Ms. Buell said. “You only bring them in when you need to cry.” More

The Canadian singer-songwriter, who died on Monday at 84, brought his rueful baritone to memorable, melancholy material.Bob Dylan once named Gordon Lightfoot one of his favorite songwriters, and called the musician “somebody of rare talent” while inducting him into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1986. On Dylan’s 1970 album “Self Portrait,” he even recorded Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain,” and the respect was mutual — Lightfoot listened carefully to Dylan’s songs, which instilled in him “a more direct approach, getting away from the love songs,” he once said.In an expansive career that drew from Greenwich Village folk and Laurel Canyon pop, Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr., who died on Monday at 84, was embraced by a diverse group of musicians: Elvis Presley and Duran Duran, Lou Rawls and the Replacements. He sang in a rueful baritone full of tenacity and an almost professorial air, and specialized in songs that dwelled on solitude, or recounted unhappy relationships, in grounded language that drew on folk and blues modes.“Lightfoot’s is the voice of the romantic,” Geoffrey Stokes of The Village Voice wrote in 1974. “For him (as for Don Quixote, one of his chosen heroes) perfection is always in view and always slipping from his grasp.”Nowhere was Lightfoot more beloved than in his native Canada, where he helped transform its music industry into a worldwide force. “He sent a message to the world that we’re not just a bunch of lumberjacks and hockey players up here,” Geddy Lee of Rush said in “If You Could Read My Mind,” a 2019 documentary. “We’re capable of sensitivity and poetry.” In the process, Lightfoot became one of the most successful recording artists of the 1970s.Here are 10 of Lightfoot’s most beloved and impactful songs.“For Lovin’ Me” (1966)The folk tradition in which Lightfoot initially worked is full of boastful songs about rambling men who are lighting out for the territory, but this one is uniquely cruel. It’s pushed along by his stout acoustic guitar strumming and David Rea’s sleek fingerpicking accents, which reinforce the lyric’s hauteur. “Everything you have is gone,” Lightfoot tells the woman he’s leaving. “That’s what you get for lovin’ me.” Her broken heart will eventually mend, he adds, at which point “I just might pass this way again.” He later felt some embarrassment about the song, and said, “I didn’t know what chauvinism was.”“Early Morning Rain” (1966)Lightfoot grew up in bucolic Central Ontario, which could hardly be farther from Memphis, but he sounds nearly Southern on this simple, brisk folk song, which Presley recorded a few years later. Its theme is homesickness (Lightfoot was living in Los Angeles when he wrote it); the narrator, who’s “as cold and drunk as I can be,” in addition to broke, watches a 707 fly overhead and envies its freedom as he pines for his hometown.“Did She Mention My Name” (1968)In this canny depiction of wounded pride, Lightfoot gets together with an old friend to shoot the breeze, but amid the chitchat about sports and mutual acquaintances, he casually slips in a question that reveals his agenda: “By the way, did she mention my name?” This song and “For Lovin’ Me” are fraternal twins, joined by their fascination with male pride.“Black Day in July” (1968)Lightfoot mostly worked the personal-relationship side of folk music and left the political side to others. The controversial “Black Day in July” has a restless, unsettled drum track, and describes the July 1967 uprisings in Detroit in which Black residents protested police abuse, prompting the governor to send in the National Guard and the president to send in the army. The song is full of irony, scorn and bafflement (“The soul of Motor City is feared across the land”) and most U.S. radio stations refused to play it.“If You Could Read My Mind” (1970)Lightfoot’s commercial breakthrough (it reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100) is also his masterpiece, with assistance from Nick DeCaro’s cascading string arrangement. The lyrics, inspired by his impending divorce, range from poetic to stark, until he reaches the stoic summary: “Stories always end.” The melody inspired Duran Duran’s “Save a Prayer,” and the song has been covered by a who’s who of singers, including Barbra Streisand, Johnny Cash and Neil Young — and, almost, by Frank Sinatra, who tried to record it but gave up, declaring it “too long.”“Sundown” (1974)Lightfoot was an alcoholic who knew a lot about tempestuous relationships. He wrote “Sundown” while in a jealous fit of fantasy about Cathy Smith, a girlfriend whose cheekbone he once broke during a fight. The lyrics are dark, and the snaking guitar solo is one of the great Red Shea’s finest moments. The song’s been covered by, among others, the goth legends Scott Walker and Depeche Mode.“Rainy Day People” (1975)The mid-70s was Lightfoot’s commercial peak, but this successor to the Top 10 pop hits “Sundown” and “Carefree Highway” didn’t get the reception it deserved. The chords and lyrics call to mind Jimmy Webb, as Lightfoot, with his usual precise elocution, celebrates the way loyal friendships give succor to “high-stepping strutters who land in the gutters.”“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” (1976)His best-known song is one of the most unlikely pop hits: a six-and-a-half-minute folk ballad about a freighter that sank in Lake Superior a year earlier, killing 29 crew members. It’s also surely the only Top 40 song to ever mention Gitche Gumee, the Chippewa name for Lake Superior. The impish rock band NRBQ sometimes played a slow, out-of-tune cover of the song, and if the audience didn’t like it, it would play it a second time as well.“The Circle Is Small” (1978)In some of Lightfoot’s lyrics, it’s difficult to tell whether the conflicts he describes are factual or merely byproducts of a suspicious imagination. In this softly scornful song about cheating, which he recorded in 1968 and rerecorded 10 years later, in a superior version, he believes his lover is using a friend’s apartment to carry on an affair, and he implies that he’ll eventually catch her: “The city where we live might be quite large/But the circle is small.”“Harmony” (2004)In the 1980s, as music moved away from acoustic sounds, Lightfoot chased pop success by using synthesizers, drum machines and the producer David Foster, but he didn’t sound like himself. By the time of “Harmony,” he’d returned to working with the guitarists Shea and Terry Clements. Tobacco use had eaten away at the top of his range, but the title song of his penultimate studio album has a fragile, hard-won tenderness that seems to look back at his career (and his life) with peaceful regret. More

Among our critic’s recommendations are multiple “Ring” cycles, a premiere by Ellen Reid and the soprano Lise Davidsen in Strauss’s “Salome.”Keeping up with opera in Europe is a nearly impossible task. There never seems to be enough time, or money, to see all that the continent has to offer across its many storied houses. Many of the most important among them have announced their 2023-24 seasons. Here are some highlights, in chronological order.‘Das Rheingold’The Royal Opera House in London embarks on the multiseason effort of staging Wagner’s four-opera “Der Ring des Nibelungen” with its first installment (Sept. 11-29) right as its music director, Antonio Pappano, enters his final season there. He will be back to conduct the other three, though, lending a sense of cohesion to this new staging by the reliably entertaining Barrie Kosky, starring Christopher Maltman as Wotan. Not long after, another major “Ring” begins at the Monnaie in Brussels, where the symbol-happy abstractionist Romeo Castellucci’s productions of “Das Rheingold” (Oct. 24-Nov. 9) and “Die Walküre” (Jan. 21-Feb. 11) will follow in quick succession.Antonio Pappano will conduct “Das Rheingold” at the Royal Opera House in London. This season will be Pappano’s last as the house’s music director.Victor Llorente for The New York Times‘Das Floss der Medusa’As the Komische Oper in Berlin closes for renovations, the company enters a nomadic period familiar to its neighbor, the Berlin State Opera, which for years operated out of the Schiller Theater, where many of the Komische’s productions will be presented next season. But it will also branch out, including with its new staging, by the sleekly smart Tobias Kratzer of Hans Werner Henze’s “Das Floss der Medusa” (“The Raft of the Medusa”), inside a hangar at the disused Tempelhof Airport (Sept. 16-Oct. 2).‘Aida’The provocateur Calixto Bieito’s production of Verdi’s “Aida” at Theater Basel over a decade ago has been described as a difficult, even disturbing depiction of immigration in Europe. His new staging, at the Berlin State Opera (Oct. 3-29), is being billed more modestly, as homing in on the work’s intimacy, and as mining the tension between the opera and the politics of its time. Nicola Luisotti conducts a cast that includes the tenor Yusif Eyvazov as Radamès and the bass René Pape as Ramfis.‘Masque of Might’Masques, which were something like variety shows in the 17th century, get contemporary treatment in this Opera North pastiche from the inveterate director David Pountney touring northern England (Oct. 6-Nov. 16). The hope is to give Henry Purcell — one of his country’s essential composers and, in Pountney’s view, its greatest creator of stage music until Benjamin Britten — his due as a writer for the theater. So, rather than revive Purcell’s only opera, “Dido and Aeneas,” Pountney has assembled bits and pieces from elsewhere in his output for a new show on topical contemporary themes.‘Antony & Cleopatra’After its premiere in San Francisco this season, John Adams’s latest opera, an intricate yet flowing adaptation of Shakespeare, travels to the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Spain (Oct. 28-Nov. 8). One of the stars it was written for, the soprano Julia Bullock, missed the earlier run because she was pregnant, but she will be back, with the rest of the principal cast, for this revival, directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer. Adams, who famously revises his scores, will be at the conductor’s podium.John Adams’s “Antony & Cleopatra” will come to the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Spain, in the fall after an earlier staging in California.Cory Weaver‘Götterdämmerung’Yes, more of the “Ring.” The Zurich Opera House’s cycle, conducted by its general music director, Gianandrea Noseda, and directed by Andreas Homoki, its artistic leader, reaches its conclusion with the premiere of “Götterdämmerung,” starring the elegant, mighty soprano Camilla Nylund as Brünnhilde and the ethereal-voiced tenor Klaus Florian Vogt as Siegfried (Nov. 5-Dec. 3). Then, the whole “Ring” will be presented in cycles in spring 2024, with performers including Tomasz Konieczny as Wotan and Christopher Purves as Alberich (May 3-9 and 18-26).‘Le Grand Macabre’György Ligeti’s only opera — an apocalyptic dark comedy of dizzying eclecticism — was widely seen in the years immediately after its 1978 premiere. These days, a performance of it feels like more of a special occasion; but next season, there are two to choose from. At the Vienna State Opera, Jan Lauwers, who directed a strident revival of Luigi Nono’s “Intolleranza 1960” at the Salzburg Festival, helms a new production conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado (Nov. 11-23). Then, at the Bavarian State Opera, the work will be presented in a new staging by the cerebral Krzysztof Warlikowski, conducted by one of that house’s former general music directors, Kent Nagano (June 28-July 7).Gustavo Dudamel, the Paris Opera’s music director, will conduct a new production of Thomas Adès’s “The Exterminating Angel.”Joel Saget/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images‘The Exterminating Angel’Thomas Adès’s third opera — one of the finest so far this century — seemed to have a future threatened by its own ambition. With an enormous (which is to say expensive) cast of principal characters and an orchestra of Wagnerian scale, it was not exactly inviting revivals. Yet there it is on the schedule for the Paris Opera’s coming season — with a less starry cast than its early runs at the Salzburg Festival and the Metropolitan Opera, perhaps, but with a new production from Calixto Bieito, and the baton of Gustavo Dudamel, the company’s music director and a sure hand in Adès’s music (Feb. 29-March 23).Ellen Reid presents her opera “The Shell Trial” at the Dutch National Opera in March 2024.Erin Baiano‘The Shell Trial’The Dutch National Opera, which in the past couple of seasons has been a font of successful world premieres like Michel van der Aa’s “Upload” and Alexander Raskatov’s “Animal Farm,” has now commissioned the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Reid, whose “The Shell Trial” will be introduced at the house’s Opera Forward Festival (March 16-21). Inspired by a Dutch court’s 2021 ruling that the Shell company was legally responsible for contributing to climate change, it will feature Julia Bullock, a star of “Upload,” in the dual role of the Law and the Artist.‘Salome’Everything on this list has been a new production or a premiere. But opera is an art form that thrives on revivals of repertory classics, and on hearing the stars of today revisit the works, and productions, of the past. One of those singers is the soprano Lise Davidsen, who tends to astonish in her role debuts, like her Marschallin in “Der Rosenkavalier” at the Metropolitan Opera recently. Coming soon is more Strauss, when she takes on the title character in his “Salome” at the Paris Opera, in Lydia Steier’s staging, conducted by Mark Wigglesworth (May 9-28). More

The longtime Jazz at Lincoln Center musician leads a tribute this weekend to his mambo ancestors Tito Puente and Tito Rodríguez.As he worked his way through a rice bowl at a Japanese restaurant near Columbus Circle in Manhattan on a recent afternoon, the bassist, composer and arranger Carlos Henriquez reflected on the long history of Latino musicians in the jazz world.“In the 1920s, there was a bassist and tuba player called Ralph Escudero who used to play with W.C. Handy and Fletcher Henderson,” he said, arching his manicured eyebrows for emphasis. “We’ve always been part of this. So, I’m going to say, Hey, I’m from the South Bronx, I’m Puerto Rican and I love jazz.”Henriquez, who will lead an all-star band on May 5-6 in a centennial tribute to the mambo kings Tito Puente and Tito Rodríguez at Jazz at Lincoln Center, was about to join a rehearsal for the institution’s annual gala. Dressed down in a gray plaid flannel shirt and dark bluejeans, he took his place at his pivotally placed bassist’s chair as the orchestra practiced standards — the theme this year was “American Anthems” — including Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”“I’ve always visualized the bass as the catcher of a baseball team — we see everything, the whole game,” he said. “That catcher is dealing with everything that’s coming in and calling the plays. We, the bass players, can really determine where the music is going to, where the concept is going.”Over about 25 years as a professional musician, Henriquez has developed a reputation as a grounded but wildly imaginative composer and player. “Carlos has become a master of his instrument and writing arrangements,” said the timbalero José Madera in a phone interview from his home in Colorado. “He’s grown, he’s left the planet, he’s in outer space somewhere.”Henriquez’s path from the streets of 1980s Mott Haven in the Bronx to the Jazz at Lincoln Center stage was sparked in part by an encounter as a teenager with the organization’s director, Wynton Marsalis. “When I was a kid, the Jazzmobile used to come to St. Mary’s Park across the street from the Betances Houses, where I grew up,” Henriquez said, referring to the portable stage that brings jazz to New York neighborhoods. “I remember Clark Terry and David Murray played, and also Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, Larry Harlow.”Henriquez said his father, who worked at a V.A. hospital, was given cassettes by his African American friends. “One day he gave me a tape with Bill Evans, Eddie Gomez and Paul Chambers, and I was freaking out — I was like, man, this is killing.”At first, Henriquez played the piano, and then switched to classical guitar, which landed him in the Juilliard School’s music advancement program while he attended the performing arts high school LaGuardia. He switched to bass in his second year‌ at Juilliard, and won first place in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington competition for high school bands. At 19, he joined the Wynton Marsalis Septet and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.“I started going to Wynton’s house religiously, and we exchanged information about Latin music, something we do to this day,” Henriquez said. “And vice versa. If I need help with classical music or something, he’ll help me out.”Henriquez onstage with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, featuring its leader, Wynton Marsalis (at right).Tina Fineberg for The New York TimesDuring a question-and-answer session at Essentially Ellington in 2019, Marsalis praised his protégé: “Every night this man is coming to swing,” he said, addressing a roomful of jazz hopefuls. “He gave me a another whole way of understanding music,” Marsalis added. Describing a moment when Henriquez offered a critique on a piece Marsalis had written, the trumpeter recalled the bassist saying, “It’s all on the wrong beat.’”For Henriquez, the key to fusing Afro-Cuban rhythms and jazz is finding a way to get the feeling of swing to conform to the five-beat clave rhythm. “It’s not just imagining ‘The Peanut Vendor’ as played by John Coltrane,” he said. Henríquez credits Manny Oquendo’s Conjunto Libre and the Fort Apache Band, which was headed by the Bronx brothers Andy and Jerry González, as “spiritual leaders.”As a session bassist, Henriquez has played with Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Lenny Kravitz, Natalie Merchant, the bachata group Aventura and the Cuban jazz pianists Chucho Valdés and Gonzalo Rubalcaba. He has even toured with Nuyorican Soul, the dance-music project led by the D.J.s Little Louie Vega and Kenny (Dope) Gonzalez. “We had DJ Jazzy Jeff spinning records onstage while we were playing Latin grooves,” he said.Since 2010, when Henriquez served that year as musical director of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s cultural exchange with the Cuban Institute of Music, he has been integrally involved in the group’s Latin jazz programming. In the past decade, he’s been at the helm for a show featuring Rubén Blades singing jazz and salsa standards, a Latin spin on the work of Dizzy Gillespie, and last year’s scintillating “Monk con Clave” tribute to Thelonious Monk.“I was telling them, look, there’s a bigger picture to this,” Henriquez said of his message to the orchestra’s leadership. Musicians from earlier eras who are meaningful to the New York scene are “not getting credit,” or opportunities to perform. “We need to hire these people so that we could at least let them know that we didn’t forget about them.”“We, the bass players can really determine where the music is going to, where the concept is going,” Henriquez said.Dana Golan for The New York TimesFor this week’s Puente and Rodríguez tribute, Henriquez, who played with the Tito Puente orchestra when he was in his late teens, enlisted longtime Puente collaborators like the bongo player Johnny (Dandy) Rodríguez Jr. and Madera, and crafted a set list that combines both well-known and somewhat obscure tracks from the two luminaries.One of Henriquez’s charms is his ability to ad-lib nuggets of Latin music and jazz history between songs, in quips that land somewhere between stand-up comedy and a TED Talk. Asked over lunch about the rumored rivalry between Puente and Rodríguez, who vied for top billing at shows at the Palladium and other venues, he coolly demurred in deadpan comic tone. The song “El Que Se Fue” (“The One Who Left”)? “Rodríguez was trashing a guy,” Henriquez said, “but it wasn’t Tito Puente.”The Puente centennial has also occasioned a tribute and art exhibit at Hostos Community College in the Bronx; a vinyl reissue on Craft Recordings of “Mambo Diablo,” Puente’s 1985 jazz album, which featured “Lush Life” and other jazz standards; and an event at the Lehman Center for the Performing Arts on May 20. Yet as much as the mambo era burns brightly in the spirit of Latin New York, Henriquez, whose 2021 solo album “The South Bronx Story” mined 1970s lore of widespread arson and street gang truces, continues to dig deeper into other neglected histories.“I’m working on my next album and I realize, we’re right in the middle of this neighborhood that used to be called San Juan Hill,” he said, referring to the area that was demolished to build Lincoln Center. “And then I find out, we used to live here, with African Americans, and Benny Carter wrote a suite called Echoes of San Juan Hill, and Thelonious Monk used to play here. I came to realize how valuable this neighborhood was, and I found this out because I was yearning to find my connection to jazz.“It’s the spirits of our ancestors, and they’re calling, you know?” More

Sean Combs, Dua Lipa, Lizzo and Janelle Monáe were among the revelers who kept going after the formal affair, with drinks, dancing and no cockroach sightings.At 11 p.m., outside the Mark Hotel on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, gawkers pressed up against police barricades, hoping to catch a glimpse of someone — anyone — who had been at the Met Gala and was now showing up to the first of its after-parties.Jeremiah Scott, who said he was an aspiring designer, put on his boxy double-breasted blazer, pulled up his studded cargo pants and headed for the front of the line. Within seconds, he and a friend — a rapper who goes by the tag NYXJVH and who wore a studded $3,000 Margiela mask that covered his entire face — strolled through the lobby toward an event space where waiters passed out crispy spring rolls and a D.J. played vintage Madonna. Neither Mr. Scott nor his friend was on the list, but they managed to blend in with the invited guests.In the center of the room was a giant gold statue in the shape of Karl Lagerfeld’s face. Posing against it was Amanda Lepore, the nightlife diva whose physical transformation into an hourglass-shaped kewpie doll put her in the plastic surgery pantheon alongside Jocelyn Wildenstein.A reporter asked Ms. Lepore if she had attended the ball, which celebrated the opening of a Karl Lagerfeld retrospective at the Met’s Costume Institute. “No,” she said, disappearing into the crowd.Nicky Hilton Rothschild, Paris Hilton, Char Defrancesco and Marc Jacobs at Richie Akiva’s “The After” party, held at the Box and hosted by Diddy and Doja Cat.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesCara Delevingne dances with Alton Mason during the Karl Lagerfeld Met Gala afterparty at the Mark Hotel.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesJonathan Groff, Lea Michele, Darren Criss and Micaela Diamond with friends at the Met Gala afterparty at the Top of the Standard at the Standard Hotel.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesDiddy onstage during Richie Akiva’s party at the Box. Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesNeither had Aquaria, the Season 10 winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”Like a number of the gala’s actual attendees, Aquaria had on a catsuit that paid homage to Choupette, Mr. Lagerfeld’s tortie Birman cat. “I’m here representing the mentally unwell members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community,” she said, adding that fashion doesn’t have to be so serious.A rapper who goes by the tag NYXJVH wore a studded $3,000 Margiela face mask.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesLil Nas X at the Top of the Standard.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesMary J. Blige at the same party.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesA bust of Karl Lagerfeld at the Mark Hotel. Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesAfter a cockroach became a viral sensation by crawling across the carpeted steps at the Met, who could argue with that?Certainly not the gala’s main organizer, Anna Wintour, who has shown a willingness to move with the moment, even if that means putting on a yearly bacchanal that increasingly feels more like the world’s highest-wattage Halloween parade than fashion’s biggest night out.And certainly not Mr. Lagerfeld, a man who, until a few months before his death at 85, hit the social circuit in Hedi Slimane suits, spouting proclamations about the pointlessness of preciousness.“There is nothing worse than bringing up the ‘good old days,’” he once said. “To me, that’s the ultimate acknowledgment of failure.”Into the Mark waltzed Lisa Airan, a cosmetic dermatologist whose skills with syringes have prevented many a gala regular from becoming an example of what once was.Inside the party at the Box. Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesStephanie Hsu at the Top of the Standard.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesBrian Tyree Henry at the Mark Hotel.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesBillie Eilish and Pier Paolo Piccioli at the Top of the Standard. Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesMs. Airan wore a cream-colored Grecian dress. Holding the train was her husband, the cosmetic surgeon Trevor Born.“It was designed with A.I.,” Ms. Airan said, naming Discord as the software program that had dreamed it up. “Then I got Gilles Mendel to execute it. I thought that if Karl was alive today, that’s what he would do. Because he was so forward thinking.”To Ms. Airan, who said she attends the gala every year, there had been nothing about the crowd at this year’s event that indicated a drop in quality. “Everyone looked great,” she said. “This was the first year it was sponsored by Ozempic.”Only the second part of that statement was a joke, she was quick to add.Chris Rock at the Box. Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesTeyana Taylor at the Mark Hotel.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesMs. Taylor performed during the party at the Box.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesTrevor Noah, center, at the Standard Hotel party.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesAround midnight, a few genuinely famous people had arrived at the Mark.James Corden stood by the bar in his black tuxedo pants and blue tuxedo jacket. Brian Tyree Henry, a star of the beloved FX series “Atlanta,” posed for photographers a few feet away.It was Mr. Henry’s first time as a Met Gala guest. Although he said he had never met Mr. Lagerfeld, he had been placed by Vogue at the Chanel table, a clear measure of his status near the top of this year’s heap.“It was unbelievable,” Mr. Henry said of the gala. “Everyone looked stunning. Nothing like a black and white ball.”Many of the guests started heading downtown, to the Standard Hotel, the site of another after-party.In the “Mad Men”-meets-Rainbow Room top-floor space, professional dancers gyrated on platforms in white spray-painted bodysuits that brought to mind Keith Haring’s collaboration with Grace Jones. The designer Jeremy Scott stood at the bar. The model Coco Rocha passed by in a sparkly gold dress. The host was Janelle Monáe.Jenna Ortega at the Top of the Standard. Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesCarla Bruni at the Mark Hotel.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesQuinta Brunson at the Top of the Standard.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesMs. Monáe had arrived at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a Chanel-inspired Thom Browne black and white coat, which she stripped off in front of photographers to reveal a see-through hoop skirt, under which she wore a black bikini with Lagerfeld-like pearls dangling from the waistline. Now she had ditched the skirt and went around with a black cape draped across her shoulders.The star wattage in the Standard crowd did not approach that of earlier years, when Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Uma Thurman, Donatella Versace and Madonna parked themselves at banquettes and partied until the wee hours, but there were still some big names in the room.Mary J. Blige arrived as Ms. Monáe and the dancers climbed aboard the bar to put on a short show. After that, Lil Nas X and Billie Eilish strolled in.The nightlife impresario Richie Akiva put on “The After,” a party at the Box with Diddy and Doja Cat.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesAquaria, dressed as Choupette, at the Mark Hotel.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesSelah Marley at the Karl Lagerfeld party.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesDownstairs, an Escalade big enough to have Lizzo’s name skywritten in the ozone layer pulled up, and out she stepped. “We love the blond hair,” a fan yelled from the middle of the Belgian-block street.Pier Paolo Piccioli, the designer at Valentino, headed off in a car, bound for Virgo, a basement nightclub on the Lower East Side, where a party hosted by Dua Lipa was taking place.To get there, one descended a dark staircase lit from both sides in neon red.Florence Pugh, her head newly shaved, stood at the bar in the front room. Ms. Lipa was at the front of a narrow, packed dance floor, dancing in an outfit adorned with pearls. Dom Pérignon was in abundance.Penélope Cruz took a quick tour of the room in her black Chanel dress shortly before the arrival of the director Baz Luhrmann and the designer Prabal Gurung. Mr. Gurung mentioned that this was the third after-party he had attended, adding that it was, in his own estimation, “too many.”But with the music still blasting, people still dancing, and Rihanna and ASAP Rocky moments away in an ozone-shattering vehicle of their own, it would be hours before things ended there or at the Box, a nearby burlesque club where Sean Combs, the rapper known as Diddy, held a party of his own.There, Usher sipped a drink in front of the D.J. booth. The singer Juan Luis Londoño Arias, who performs as Maluma, was on the balcony, flashing peace signs to the crowd below. Paris Hilton swayed from side to side, eyes hidden behind white sunglasses, with Marc Jacobs at her side. Naomi Campbell danced nearby. Mary J. Blige stood next to Mr. Combs as he played emcee.“If you’re tired, you can leave,” he said into the mic.The cat head Jared Leto wore to the Met Gala was spotted at the Karl Lagerfeld party at the Mark Hotel. Rebecca Smeyne for The New York Times More