Music

The opera by Antonin Dvorak about a water nymph’s journey into the human world, first performed in 1901, is making its debut at La Scala in June.Poor Rusalka. The title character of Antonin Dvorak’s opera is a love-struck water nymph, misunderstood and scorned. She has long been appreciated but was not exactly celebrated as an operatic heroine for decades before slowly emerging as a darling of the opera world.But now, “Rusalka” is having a moment that may charm even the most jaded of water nymphs. The opera will make its debut at La Scala in Milan next month, 122 years after it first delighted audiences in Dvorak’s native Czech homeland in 1901. Many might say it’s long overdue at one of the world’s most prestigious opera houses, but for the creative team assembled at La Scala it’s a chance to discover, or rediscover, an opera still being interpreted more than a century later.“Rusalka,” playing six performances from June 6 to 22, is based on Slavic folklore (with parallels to the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Little Mermaid”). Rusalka lives in a lake with her water-goblin father and falls in love with a prince. With the help of a local witch and a potion, she decides to become a human to win her prince. Let’s just say that things don’t exactly go her way.The design for the character Rusalka, a love-struck water nymph. “This Rusalka won’t have the fish tail like a mermaid, but she will have tentacles like an octopus,” the director, Emma Dante, said.Vanessa SanninoThe opera is known mostly for its first-act aria “Song to the Moon” — championed by many high-profile sopranos over the last few decades, including Renée Fleming — which has helped cement its position at several major opera houses. And now at La Scala.“I have directed at many opera houses and in the repertoire of each of them there was at least one opera that was conspicuously absent,” Dominique Meyer, the artistic director and chief executive of La Scala, said by email. “When I was directing the Vienna [State] Opera, we realized that ‘Anna Bolena’ had never been performed there. At La Scala, something similar happened with ‘Rusalka.’”Mr. Meyer said the debut production was the ideal vehicle to bring back Emma Dante, a theater and film director known for her 2013 movie “A Street in Palermo” as well as avant-garde theater and opera productions. Mr. Meyer cited her “imagination and sensitivity.”“I’m happy to come back to La Scala with an opera whose protagonist is a woman,” Ms. Dante said in a video interview. “My first time was with ‘Carmen,’ and I felt a strong connection with this woman, just as I do now with Rusalka.”Ms. Dante said she feels Rusalka’s journey into the human world — and her desire to be accepted there — is a timeless topic and applicable today in a world of refugees and political turmoil worldwide.A drawing of one of the sets for “Rusalka” with the title character at left.Carmine Maringola“She arrives in a land that is not her land, so I’m interested in that transformation,” Ms. Dante said. “I’m also deeply interested in how the community does not accept her diversity.”She worked with the costume designer Vanessa Sannino and the set designer Carmine Maringola, both of whom she has collaborated with before, to do more than emphasize the fairy-tale aspect of the story.“This Rusalka won’t have the fish tail like a mermaid, but she will have tentacles like an octopus, which you can see in a wheelchair when she first comes onto land,” Ms. Dante explained. “Also, we won’t have a lake, but instead the church and the prince’s palace will both be flooded to represent a world adrift. This flooded world is a catastrophic cause of nonacceptance, of intolerance toward those of different origins and appearance.”Ms. Sannino also wanted to emphasize the witch and the prince in this otherworldly setting.“We wanted the witch to be like a madonna, monochromatic red and immense and made of muscle fibers,” she said. “And the lightness that we decided to give the prince can be found in the flowers and butterflies in his cloak and in the armor he wears.”The costume design for the prince. “The lightness that we decided to give the prince can be found in the flowers and butterflies in his cloak and in the armor he wears,” the costume designer said.Vanessa SanninoThis approach seems fitting for an opera based on folklore, and not, say, a romantic Italian opera based on a famous book and specific to its time and place. It’s also open to discovery from a musical perspective.“It’s genius music, but Dvorak was not known as a typical opera composer, and therefore it comes with some difficulties that might not always sell the piece,” said the Czech conductor Tomas Hanus in a phone interview from his home in Brno, Czech Republic. He is making his debut at La Scala with “Rusalka,” which he also conducted at the Vienna State Opera (in his debut there in 2017) and in Copenhagen, Helsinki and Munich. “The Czech composing schools did not always teach how to write these big romantic operatic scores. It’s very dependent on the interpretation of singers and conductors.”That is a sentiment echoed by the Ukrainian soprano Olga Bezsmertna, who will sing the title role, which she has come to adore (she sang it at the Vienna State Opera in 2014 and 2020 and last year in Bratislava, Slovakia). It becomes more layered each time she sings it, she said.“It’s a very difficult opera, but my voice feels at home because I don’t have to push,” Ms. Bezsmertna said in a phone interview from her home in Vienna. “My first time in Vienna, I jumped in five days before the first performance. I honestly didn’t have time to think about what to do. But it’s perfect for a lyric soprano voice.”Ms. Bezsmertna has grown into the character more in the past few years, she said, especially the journey Rusalka takes both emotionally and musically.“The second act is so completely different from the first act because she is destroyed,” Ms. Bezsmertna said. “It’s not a fairy tale anymore. She’s alone, and the prince loves another woman. Life has changed completely.”And it’s in that fairy-tale-versus-real-world situation where “Rusalka” seems to flourish, despite its dark corners, for those who know the opera or for first-time viewers at the debut at La Scala.“Death is very present in ‘Rusalka,’ but we have to keep this idea of lightness,” Ms. Dante said. “It’s a tragedy, but it’s still a fairy tale. And we always have to look at death as an occasion for rebirth.” More

Mario Botta, who just finished leading a second round of updates to the 18th-century opera house in Milan, discussed his work and his inspiration.Over the past two decades, La Scala, completed by the architect Giuseppe Piermarini in 1778, has experienced its most profound changes since after World War II, when it suffered severe damage from Allied bombing raids.The recent updates to the opera house in Milan have been led by the Swiss architect Mario Botta, renowned for designing luminous, formidable spaces worldwide, including the Church of Santo Volto in Turin, Italy, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.Mr. Botta’s first phase of work at La Scala was carried out from 2002 to 2004, and the second, begun in 2019, has just wrapped up. He discussed his work in a video interview. The following conversation has been edited and condensed.What is the scope of your work at La Scala? And what have your goals been?The work has been about creating a dialogue between the 18th century and modernity. This theater was born as a space to create dreams, illusions, adventures. It’s still a place of collective imagination. But to effectively make it work today, it needed to be much more flexible and capable than what existed in the 1700s. It had run out of space to perform effectively. We’ve created a series of elements designed to make the theater function for the 2000s.The work completed in 2004 included conserving the opera’s interiors [including restoring original elements that had been abandoned or hidden over the years], a much taller fly tower for stage sets and an elliptical building. For the most recent work, we’ve added a 17-story structure [six floors are underground] parallel to La Scala on the Via Verdi. At the base of this tower is an orchestra practice room, and on top is an airy dance studio. In between is needed functional space like offices, storage and rehearsal space.Mario Botta. “I work in the realm of modernity, but within a culture that traces back to the total history of architecture,” he said.Matteo Fieni, via Mario Botta ArchitettiThe new forms you’ve created feel modern but also timeless. Your work seems especially inspired by the tension between history and modernity. How has that informed your design process here?We’re working with the materials and techniques of today. But at the same time, this is a space that was created in a different lifetime. We want to merge the two. It’s an effort that goes on all the time in the city. The city is constantly transforming; it is a discussion between centuries. Piermarini had an image; now I need to listen to what the opera needs.When I was younger, I looked for a language inspired by futurists like Antonio Sant’Elia. They wanted to create a completely futuristic city. Over the years, my design has evolved to be about the confrontation between times. A collage of different languages. It’s about the functions, needs and realities of today merging with the continuation of historical representation.The facade of the extension of La Scala.Theatre La ScalaWhat does your creative process look like?In my work, the pencil is the protagonist. I don’t work with computers. I work with models. With solid pieces, like an artisan. As all the issues come to the table, I find a synthesis. History is the mother; the pencil is the father. History stays history, but it provides endless inspiration. Without history, we don’t exist. I work in the realm of modernity, but within a culture that traces back to the total history of architecture. We have so many examples of images of the past. Without history, there is no inspiration.For this project, you’ve created substantial new buildings clad in Botticino marble. This diverges from the work of many modern architects, who tend to highlight lighter materials like glass and steel.Glass as a material is less inspiring, less honest. Stone is honest. With glass, you can see it’s transparent, but you can’t really understand what’s inside. I look for forms and materials that speak to the function of a building: a church, a library, a museum. Something with a familiar presence. A gravity. If a building has no gravity, it doesn’t exist. I look for the truth of a material, and of a building. Buildings today all look the same. You can’t read their function. This is the homogeneity that’s been created by globalization. It’s destroyed the symbolic power of buildings; the value of architecture. Now, a McDonald’s can resemble a theater. We’ve lost the capacity to express the true value of architecture.You’ve got a long history with Milan — you studied there when you were young. How has it played a role in your design?Milan has very specific characteristics. Its history is very much about strength and gravity, and there are so many buildings that express themselves through verticality and honesty.This is because Milan is a city of work. More than other cities in Italy, it’s a city of industry, of promotion, of entrepreneurship. It needs buildings like that.You’re well known for your weighty but uplifting sacred architecture. The work here seems to have a sacred component to it. Can you talk about that?I find that architecture is always a sacred act, because it transforms nature and it represents our entire world. The architecture of sacred spaces is very close to the architecture of theaters or museums. You’re trying to create a type of value and strength. You’re attempting to embody a certain message. To try to understand our world. I only do work that I consider sacred. I’m trying to interpret and build a kind of spirit. I leave McDonald’s to America. More

Wallen spends an eighth week at No. 1 with “One Thing at a Time,” and Swift lands three albums in the Top 10, including the new vinyl set “Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions.”Half of the Billboard album chart’s Top 10 this week belongs to Morgan Wallen and Taylor Swift, with Wallen holding two slots, including No. 1, and Swift taking three.Wallen’s 36-track “One Thing at a Time” remains at the top for an eighth time, with the equivalent of 149,000 sales in the United States, according to the tracking service Luminate. His previous release, “Dangerous: The Double Album,” is No. 7.Agust D — better known as Suga of the K-pop titans BTS — debuts at No. 2 with his first solo studio album, “D-Day.” It had the equivalent of 140,000 sales, including 18 million streams and 122,000 copies sold as a complete album.Swift opens at No. 3 with “Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions,” a two-LP vinyl set released on April 22 as part of Record Store Day, an annual promotion in which artists and labels issue one-day special releases. It was limited to 75,000 copies in the United States, and every one of them was sold, according to Luminate. That is the biggest week for any album on vinyl so far this year, Billboard said.Swift, who is still playing stadiums on her Eras Tour, also occupies No. 4 this week, with her latest studio album, “Midnights,” and No. 10, with “Lover,” from 2019.Also this week, YoungBoy Never Broke Again, the prolific Louisiana rapper, arrives at No. 5 with his new “Don’t Try This at Home,” which features guest appearances by Nicki Minaj, Mariah the Scientist, Post Malone and others. The 33-track album, his 14th to reach the Top 10, had the equivalent of 60,000 sales, including 88 million streams. More

Some British residents said they received misleading emails suggesting they had secured free tickets to the concert for the coronation of King Charles III at Windsor Castle.At five minutes past noon on Tuesday, Ticketmaster sent Joe Holmes and many others in Britain an email: “Congratulations, you have been successful in the ballot” for two tickets to King Charles’s coronation concert.Mr. Holmes, a student in his final year at the University of Essex, saw it immediately while checking his email and rushed to click the link to claim his tickets to the concert, an official coronation event that will take place a day after King Charles III is crowned — only to be met with a message saying that none were available.He was one of dozens of people who believed they had secured entry to the concert before being quickly let down once they tried to collect tickets. Many Twitter users posted screenshots of the same “congratulations” email Mr. Holmes received this week and expressed frustration about the confusing messaging; one user called the email “disgraceful” and said Ticketmaster had a “total shambles of a system.”It was “immediate excitement and then immediate disappointment,” Mr. Holmes said on Friday. He had already sent a screenshot of the email to his sister in celebration and believed his next step would be to book a train to the event.Ticketmaster was tasked with issuing 10,000 free tickets to the concert being held on May 7 through balloting, a process that fans are saying the site has made a mess of. It comes a few months after the company canceled the public sale of tickets to Taylor Swift’s latest tour because of high demand, which spurred public outrage, a lawsuit from fans and a Senate hearing.Ticketmaster said in an emailed statement on Friday that people who had been selected in earlier rounds of balloting had three weeks to claim their tickets to the coronation concert. On Tuesday, after that time had expired, “unclaimed tickets were released on a first-come, first-served basis to those who had previously applied and were unsuccessful,” the company said. “These inevitably went very quickly.”A tweet from the company’s U.K. page on Tuesday announced the tickets had “sold out.” Replies to the tweet included stories of experiences similar to that of Mr. Holmes.The application to be included in the balloting was open from Feb. 10 through Feb. 28. Tickets were to be allocated “based on the geographical spread of the U.K. population,” according to the British royal family’s website.Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Take That will headline the concert, which is being organized and broadcast by the BBC. It is the first to be held on the grounds of Windsor Castle, the royal family said. Mr. Holmes, who said his mother traveled to London for the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1981, wanted to attend the concert to be present for “a part of history.”The email from Ticketmaster said Mr. Holmes was one of a “randomly selected group of ballot winners” offered tickets in a “supplementary round” that would be on “a first-come, first-served basis.” It urged him to “act quickly.” But farther down, it said he would have until noon on April 27 to claim the tickets, after which “they will be re-allocated.”Even so, Mr. Holmes said he acted within minutes to no avail. It was unclear how many tickets were actually available, or how many people received the same email about them.He searched Twitter and found many others who said they had a similar experience.Janine Barclay, 58, who received the same email on Tuesday, declined a lunch invitation for May 7 because she thought she was headed to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “I was telling everybody about this,” she said on Friday, “and then I’ve got egg on my face.”She received the email while she was out of the house and put off claiming the tickets, thinking she had a couple of days. Ms. Barclay said she was grateful that she lived close enough to Windsor Castle that her instinct was not to book a hotel or travel.“They misled people,” Mr. Holmes said, but he added that he knew to expect disappointment in these situations. “We know how it goes with concerts these days,” he said. “It’s so hard to get tickets, it’s an event itself.” He plans to watch the concert on television at a family barbecue.Beyond bad blood with Swifties, Ticketmaster was criticized in March when fans tried to attend the final round of the Eurovision Song Contest and some complained that glitches left them ticketless. The Cure said last month that Ticketmaster agreed to issue refunds to some fans after they complained of high ticket fees.“It is a fiasco,” said Ms. Barclay, a swim coach and teacher in Pinner, England, who was excited to take her husband to the coronation concert. “For a big company like this,” she said, “you would have thought that they would have handled it better.” More

Three artists preparing a new production of this classic at the Metropolitan Opera discuss what makes it so difficult yet satisfying.There are operas that are challenging for their sheer technical demands — the density of Berg’s “Lulu” or the heroic immensity of Wagner epics. And then there are those that seem simple but are actually some of the most difficult.In that second category fall Mozart’s three collaborations with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte — “Le Nozze di Figaro,” “Don Giovanni” and “Così Fan Tutte” — works of slippery psychology, frank humanity and, crucially, crystalline construction that punishes any mistake onstage or in the orchestra pit.Particularly tough to stage is “Don Giovanni,” which returns to the Metropolitan Opera in a new production on May 5, with Peter Mattei in the title role. Its score runs nearly three hours with major events at the beginning and end — Giovanni murders the father of a woman he nearly rapes, then later is dragged to hell — but little in between other than characters repeating mistakes, as if in loops of unhealthy habits.Without the hand of a confident director, the story rapidly sags. And, in true operatic fashion, its telling is equally dependent on a conductor’s momentum, and actorly, complex expression from the singers. When all the pieces fall into place, “Don Giovanni” unfurls with a sublime, graceful beauty that a casual listener might find straightforward, even light.But, the conductor Nathalie Stutzmann said, “the simpler this opera sounds, the more difficult it is to create.” As she prepares to open the Met’s new “Don Giovanni,” she and two other members of its team — Ivo van Hove, the director, and Ying Fang, a leading Mozart soprano who stars as Zerlina — discussed the work’s challenges and gifts. Here are edited excerpts from those conversations.Ivo van Hove“This man has been idolized as a libertine — his mission is “Viva la libertà” — but his own freedom, not the freedom of other people,” said van Hove.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesI’ve seen some famous productions. There was Peter Brook in 1984, with Peter Mattei; it was a minimalist staging but very powerful. I’ve seen Michael Haneke’s in Paris, and that was modern, with Don Giovanni as the C.E.O. of a big firm. And I’ve seen another one in Salzburg by my idol, Patrice Chéreau, whose work I used to see in Paris all the time when I was young, with my little car and no money, driving back after the show was over.A challenge is that it’s very long. The first act is sharp as a knife, and the second is almost repeating the things we have seen, but developing them deeper. And that’s where it gets even more challenging — there are these buffa parts, that even those huge directors that I’ve seen fail at. They get lost in there. If you start to do comedy, it doesn’t work; then it’s about nothing. You have to deepen the emotions, not play it light or funny, which is not really what it is anyway.My starting point was something that people often forget: The original title was “Il Dissoluto Punito, Ossia il Don Giovanni” [“The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni”]. When I saw this title, a lot of doors opened. Mozart had a clear point of view on the character. I had always found it a bit difficult to accept that Donna Anna is a little bit in love with him while she’s raped in the first scene, and then a few minutes later he kills, without any reason, her father. This man has been idolized as a libertine — his mission is “Viva la libertà” — but his own freedom, not the freedom of other people. “Don Giovanni” became for me suddenly a very contemporary opera.When I studied the score and the text, I discovered that it talks about power structures in our society: Don Giovanni, servants like Leporello, but also the farmers’ community in Masetto. Don Giovanni seduces Masetto’s fiancée, Zerlina, with the promise of a fabulous future of riches and a house, and all these things. Then there’s the sexual, emotional dominance of Donna Elvira; these power structures are about control at the detriment of others, and Don Giovanni is at the top while the others resist him.And the libretto is so well written, the characters are all complex and ambivalent individuals. They are a bit like Ingmar Bergman characters: neither good nor bad, just human. So, all of this becomes almost like a description of the times we live in.The ending can be very difficult, but I wanted Don Giovanni to go to hell, and burn in hell forever. What we show is something you don’t expect. But he, as a person, is a problem that has to be dealt with. And with this ending, now that he is dealt with, everybody can move on with their lives. They have closure. It is actually a conventional, happy ending. But I think that is necessary: You see them taking up daily life, as if they were starting again.Nathalie Stutzmann“My idea is to make it really alive, and very much about the story,” Stutzmann said.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesMozart is a kind of doctor for any singer or musician’s playing: Every note that is not right, every dynamic, every articulation, every balance is hearable immediately. Everything that you can cover in later Romantic music — you can hide much more in Wagner — you can’t with Mozart.This orchestration in “Don Giovanni” is so precise. I’ve never seen in Mozart so many fortepiano dynamics; it’s abrupt and a permanent change of color. Which is interesting, but also tiring and very hard to play for three hours. You can never relax. It is a nonstop race — a race that goes to the abyss at the end.The arc of it is already in the first measure of the overture. Those notes are the abyss; you have them again at the end. So you have to build the overture so that people understand. Then there is everything in between.There is the party, which is a virtuoso moment for the orchestra and singers. A lot is connected to the words, the phrasing, but you cannot do that if you are singing every note égal. You don’t have time. So, you have to respect the appoggio [breath support] of the language, and you have to be super strict with the rhythm. When it’s not precise, it’s like a sugar crash. But when it is, it works like a Swiss clock.I’ll never forget a phrase that I read in a book: Mozart said, one of the most difficult, important and crucial things to realize in playing my music is simply the right tempo. In this opera, it’s one key for me. The phrasing seems simple, but the realization is incredibly difficult. The pulse needs to be organic, and one thing needs to be related to the next.There are many places where we need to make a connection; for me that is the recitativo. My idea is to make it really alive, and very much about the story. I also include the pianoforte instrument in the arias, sometimes, for joyful moments — like the kisses of Zerlina, a little bit in the spirit of Mozart, what he would do.What I try to achieve is less of a gap between the recitativo moments and the arias. Typically at this time, the story was told by the recitativo, and the aria described the feeling. But in this opera, the recitativo has so many stories, while the arias are also telling them. It’s a very modern opera in that respect.Ying Fang“To interpret this, you have to be faithful to what Mozart has already written,” Fang said.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesWhen you sing the music right, Mozart is like medicine, a balm for the voice. It’s indescribably beautiful, and just so genius. But it can be deceptive. It sounds very simple and effortless, but it takes a lot of hard work to achieve that.You have to have perfect legato, and perfect breath control, to get through a lot of long phrases. Mozart also writes runs with crazy coloratura, as well as some dramatic moments. To do all that requires secure technique. It’s very different from verismo, or Verdi. Clarity and purity: When you’re singing Mozart’s music, you have to use particular muscles to be flexible yet keep the purity of the tone. This is all a testament of healthy, and good, technique.Mostly in the recitatives, Zerlina gets more dramatic. In the scene right before “Batti, batti,” when she goes back to Masetto after almost being seduced by Don Giovanni, she displays her capability in dealing with Masetto, saying: “What, you don’t believe me? Then kill me. Please, let’s just make peace.” It’s completely human, and so relatable. That’s another thing about these roles; you can see yourself, and you know you could be that person.But to interpret this, you have to be faithful to what Mozart has already written. He is a great vocal composer; a lot of things are already written into the score, stressed in how the language is expressed. If you follow that, the emotions speak for themselves. So, the interpretation has to be a little more strict, but it should seem effortless.The hard work to do that is in the preparation. You’ve got to know other people’s lines, and be aware and listen to whatever is happening around you. Once you know all that, everything is clear, and you can stop thinking too much and just enjoy being in your character. Then, the beauty of it is just so satisfying. It really is one of the greatest joys. More

Jonathon Heyward, the incoming, barrier-breaking music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, leads the New York Philharmonic this week.On paper, this week’s New York Philharmonic program had plenty going for it: balance, an up-and-coming conductor, an established soloist. But at David Geffen Hall on Thursday, the concert was only sometimes on the verge of grand, and just as often one or two kindling sticks short of a true fire.Still, the show provided an opportunity to catch the rising star Jonathon Heyward, who was making his Philharmonic debut, filling in for Karina Canellakis. In a few months, he will become the first Black music director of the Baltimore Symphony. And, from the start of Thursday’s performance, his reputation for dramatic feeling and attention to dynamics seemed to be well earned.Heyward drew dynamism from the orchestra, without any recourse to stentorian volume, in the opening minutes of Zosha Di Castri’s “Lineage,” an 11-minute piece from 2013. Like some of her works on the recent portrait album “Tachitipo,” this one derives momentum from hairpin turns that link together drone-ish states and startling streams of motivic activity. But toward the end of the work, in some hushed moments of still-busy writing, the Philharmonic’s interpretation slackened — sounding tentative, or short of full commitment.

Tachitipo by Zosha Di CastriSomething similar transpired during Brahms’s lengthy and majestic Violin Concerto, which followed. Initially, Heyward had the full attention of the Philharmonic players. During the opening movement, he subtly shaped a dramatic pause not long before the entrance of the soloist, Christian Tetzlaff; the orchestra responded with tactile precision to his dramatic, yet not too mannered, method of navigating the transition.Tetzlaff‌ was as impressive here as on a recent recording of this piece on the Ondine ‌label; though his approach was obviously well-drilled in advance, he also proved sensitive here to Heyward’s beat. And his expert handling of Joseph Joachim’s first-movement cadenza — with playing that varied in its timbral effects, from rough-hewn to silvery to robustly expressive — showed an invention that had been missing for a stretch of time in the broader ensemble playing.Sometimes, Tetzlaff seemed to toss off a line reading, appearing none too studied, but in service of setting up explosive precision. A bit of that moment-to-moment interpretive sensibility in the surrounding orchestral material might have proved equally thrilling.Thankfully, after intermission, a greater nimbleness prevailed during Lutoslawski’s Concerto for Orchestra. Although it is not as formally radical as other works in this Polish modernist’s catalog, Heyward and the orchestra found a great wealth of rambunctious material to savor. The first movement’s folk-like melody had a singing quality that contrasted nicely with some moments of raging, post-Stravinsky exclamation. The gentler middle movement had an air of transporting mystery. And the passacaglia of the third movement progressed with persuasive momentum.The final work also dispelled a sense I had that the Brahms might have been hobbled by the slightly chilly acoustic of the recently renovated Geffen Hall. In the Lutoslawski, there were some rounded, warm sounds that had been missing during the appropriate passages in the Brahms. But the orchestra is still getting used to its new home, and Heyward is still getting used to this orchestra; with time, a program like this might find a better tone.And he will be back. After Saturday’s performance — which is followed by a Nightcap program drawn up by Di Castri — Heyward will be absent from Geffen Hall only until he leads the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra there in August.New York PhilharmonicThis program repeats through Saturday at David Geffen Hall, Manhattan; nyphil.org. More

His band, the Pop Group, was anything but pop, blending anti-authoritarian fury with a ferocious mix of punk, funk and experimental jazz.Mark Stewart, the incendiary frontman of the British post-punk band the Pop Group, whose explosive mix of funk, noise rock, free jazz experimentalism and anti-authoritarian rage made a mockery of the group’s sunny name, died on April 21. He was 62.His death was announced in a statement by his London-based recoding label, Mute. It provided no other details.The Pop Group emerged in Bristol, England, in 1977, as punk rock was shaking the foundations of the British music scene. Mr. Stewart found inspiration in punk’s iconoclastic fury. “There is the arrogance of power,” he once said, “and what we got from punk was the power of arrogance.”Onstage, the band created a cyclone force that put many punk bands to shame. Gyrating manically and barking rebellious lyrics through his pouty, Jagger-esque lips, Mr. Stewart whipped audiences into a frenzy with songs like “We Are All Prostitutes,” the band’s best known single, from 1979, which reached No. 8 on the British indie charts. The lyrics include these lines:We are all prostitutesEveryone has their priceEveryoneAnd you too will have to learn to live the lieLive performances by the Pop Group hit with “such indomitable force and such sudden visceral rage that I could barely breathe,” the musician and writer Nick Cave wrote in a tribute on his website, The Red Hand Files, after Mr. Stewart’s death.Righteous fury was as intrinsic to Mr. Stewart’s personality as it was to his music. “Mark taught me many things about life,” Mr. Cave added, including the idea that “sleeping was a bourgeois indulgence, and that the world was one giant corporate conspiracy, and that one way to win an argument was to just never, ever stop shouting.”The band scarcely made a dent commercially, but that made sense, given its contempt for all things capitalist. As Mr. Stewart put it in a 2015 interview with The Arts Desk, a culture site, “The Pop Group were really that Situationist idea of an explosion at the heart of the commodity.”Mr. Stewart performing onstage in 2012 in Leeds, England. After the Pop Group broke up, he remained prolific, collaborating with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Tricky and Massive Attack, and releasing a string of eclectic solo albums.Andrew Benge/Redferns, via Getty ImagesMark Stewart was born in Bristol, in South West England, on Aug. 10, 1960, one of two sons of an engineer father and a mother who worked with children with learning disabilities.Bristol in the 1970s was a rough town, Mr. Stewart once said, and his towering stature — he was already 6 feet 6 inches tall as a preteen — made him a tempting potential recruit for local boot-boy gangs. But the thug’s life was not for him; music was his passion — even though he and his friends considered themselves musical misfits, scouring junk shops for obscure jazz and funk records, wearing mohair sweaters inspired by the Sex Pistols and staging punk shows at a local youth center.“The local gangs really, really had it in for me,” he said in the Arts Desk interview. “They wanted me to join their gangs but didn’t realize I was only 12. They thought I was about 20. So they’d smash all the youth club windows. I had to climb out of toilet windows.”Music was a way out. “If there’s not too much going on in the town you’re in, you dream,” he said in 2014 interview with Vice.Mr. Stewart formed the Pop Group in 1976 along with the band’s original members: John Waddington (guitar), Simon Underwood (bass), Gareth Sager (guitar and saxophone) and Bruce Smith (drums).The band’s name came from Mr. Stewart’s mother. “I think she said, ‘Oh, Mark’s forming a pop group,’” he told Vice. And at the outset, he said, “we thought we were.”The band’s first album, “Y,” which was released in 1979 and produced by the British dub master Dennis Bovell, made little commercial impact.“These heavyweight journalists thought we were being deliberately obtuse,” Mr. Stewart told Vice, although NME, the taste-making British music publication, called the debut “a brave failure. Exciting but exasperating.”The Pop Group did anything but mellow on its second album, “For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?,” released the next year; it crackled with angry denunciations of Thatcher-era England. Though some dismissed it as “self-righteous soapbox agitprop,” the critic Simon Reynolds wrote in “U.K. Post-Punk,” a 2012 collection of his essays, the album, like “Y,” came to be a considered a classic by many.In a look back at the album upon its rerelease in 2016, the site Punknews.org observed: “This is the noise of a collapsing society caught on tape, running through the gamut of paranoia and death. Dig it.”The band broke up not long after the second album’s release, but Mr. Stewart remained prolific, collaborating with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Tricky and Massive Attack, and releasing a string of eclectic solo albums over the years that, characteristically, were as subtle as a bazooka.The first, “Learning to Cope With Cowardice,” from 1983, was rereleased in 2006. It inspired the music site Pitchfork to note the single-minded intensity of this “possible madman and authority-critiquing refusenik that was marginalized in his own time, only to later be viewed as a seer.”Little is publicly known about Mr. Stewart’s personal life, and information about his survivors was not available.In 2010, he reunited with the Pop Group and released two more albums, “Citizen Zombie” (2015) and “Honeymoon on Mars” (2016). Both its albums and live performances showed that the band, and Mr. Stewart, had not lost a flicker of their fire.“It was good to be reminded of how singular and beautifully abrasive the Pop Group could be,” Ben Beaumont-Thomas of The Guardian wrote in a review of a 2010 London performance, “and how dreadfully conservative most rock music since sounds in comparison.” More

As the elusive British singer and producer Jai Paul makes his live debut, hear songs by Sault, Burial and others.Jai Paul onstage in New York this week.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesDear listeners,On Wednesday night, I witnessed something that I never expected to see: a live performance by the mysterious British vocalist and producer Jai Paul.Paul’s music — full of glitches, strangely compressed sounds and spliced-together samples — is unmistakably a product of the digital age, yet his artistic persona could not be further from the era of social-media oversharing and streaming-service savvy. He has given one known interview, in 2011. His only full-length release was leaked, unfinished, in 2013; although it was rapturously received, the intrusion led him to suffer what he later described in a statement as “a breakdown of sorts.” After that, he retreated even further from the public eye, and didn’t officially release his album, “Leak 04-13 (Bait Ones)” — on which most tracks were still labeled “unfinished” — for six more years.What is it that enthralls us about a musical enigma? Paul’s story reminds me of other artists who have eschewed the spotlight to toil in anonymity (like the reclusive yet wildly prolific folk musician Jandek), as well as those who have chosen, much to the consternation of a rabid fan base, never to follow up a beloved record (like Neutral Milk Hotel, the band behind the adored 1998 indie-rock landmark “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” — and then not really anything else).The faster culture moves, the more we seem to revere these artists who have opted out of the musical rat race. We are bombarded each day with such a glut of information — so many songs imploring to be heard; so many links baiting us to click — that there is a relief in encountering a finite discography or an artist who forgoes the traditional promotional routines in favor of letting the art stand on its own.That was certainly apparent at the Jai Paul concert, which was only his fourth live show ever. His return was subdued in every sense — he didn’t tease the concerts with any new material, and there was an endearing awkwardness to his stage presence — but the audience respected that. In a way, we were all there to thank him for his reticence, his increasingly rare refusenik stance, and, of course, the enduring mystery of his music.Today’s playlist is a tribute to artists like Paul: an appropriately fleeting, gently melancholy collections of tracks from artists who have cultivated a certain mystique. In addition to Paul and Neutral Milk Hotel, it features the long-lost (and finally found, thanks to the Oscar-winning documentary “Searching for Sugarman”) singer-songwriter Rodriguez; the shadowy, shape-shifting R&B collective Sault; and the eventually unmasked but still cryptic British electronic musician Burial. It does not include Jandek, because it is possible to be so elusive that your albums are not on any streaming services.Listen along here on Spotify as you read.1. Jai Paul: “Str8 Outta Mumbai”The first proper song on Paul’s only album is a kinetic explosion of textures centered around an exhilarating sample of Vani Jairam’s “Bala Main Bairagan Hoongi,” which she wrote with Ravi Shankar. He closed his live show on Wednesday with it, and it was the unquestionable highlight of the set. (Listen on YouTube)2. Neutral Milk Hotel: “Holland, 1945”A crashing, calamitous tear-jerker from the underground hero Jeff Mangum’s 1998 opus, “Holland, 1945” had a brief moment in the mainstream in 2014 when Stephen Colbert chose it, in tribute to his late family members, as the final song played on “The Colbert Report.” (Listen on YouTube)3. Rodriguez: “Crucify Your Mind”For decades, a macabre rumor swirled that the Detroit-born folk singer Sixto Rodriguez had died onstage. In Malik Bendjelloul’s remarkable 2012 documentary, “Searching for Sugarman,” he discovered that Rodriguez was not only still alive, but that he was huge in South Africa. Better late than never, the film inspired a much-deserved Rodriguez revival. (Listen on YouTube)4. Sault: “Wildfires”The prolific R&B collective Sault lets its music speak for itself: no interviews, no press photos, no music videos. It’s not entirely clear who is in Sault. What is clear is that it makes passionate, purposeful and hypnotic tunes that give voice to collective struggle, like “Wildfires,” a soulful meditation on police brutality that appears on its harrowing 2020 album “Untitled (Black Is).” (Listen on YouTube)5. Burial: “Street Halo”“I’m a low-key person and I just want to make some tunes, nothing else,” Will Bevan wrote on Myspace in 2008, when he “came out” as the anonymous but influential producer Burial. (He broke a certain corner of the internet six years later, when he posted a selfie.) From his closely guarded realm of privacy, though, the London artist has released a steady stream of moody, brooding electronic music, including this rain-streaked title track from the 2011 EP “Street Halo.” (Listen on YouTube)6. Jai Paul: “Jasmine (Demo)”The stuttering production and hiccuping vocals of “Jasmine (Demo),” Paul’s second single, convey an introversion suffused with incredible longing. Like a lot of Paul’s best music, there’s a sonic shyness about it, but also a deep undercurrent of tenderness. (Listen on YouTube)I was born for the purpose that crucifies your mind,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“Magical Mystery Musicians” track listTrack 1: Jai Paul, “Str8 Outta Mumbai”Track 2: Neutral Milk Hotel, “Holland, 1945”Track 3: Rodriguez, “Crucify Your Mind”Track 4: Sault, “Wildfires”Track 5: Burial, “Street Halo”Track 6: Jai Paul, “Jasmine (Demo)”Bonus tracksNew newsletter alert! Madison Malone Kircher, whose story about Taylor Swift merch I linked to in last week’s Amplifier, has just introduced a weekly missive about all things internet called It Happened Online. The first installment is out today, and it is outrageously fun. Subscribe here.I went back and forth on which Rodriguez song to include, and at the last minute, I went with “Crucify Your Mind.” But you should also listen to the one I almost chose, the poetic and heartbreaking “Cause.”“Tuesday night at Knockdown Center in Queens, nearly 2,000 people were handed something fragile and entrusted — implicitly implored — not to break it.” On Tuesday night, my colleague Jon Caramanica went to the first of Jai Paul’s two New York shows and wrote an excellent review. I also enjoyed Jia Tolentino’s report for The New Yorker, in which she wrote, astutely, “Paul’s overall vibe was that of a time traveler. He had been ahead of the past decade of music, and now he was playing a 10-year-anniversary nostalgia show that was also his debut.”And if you’re looking for even more music recommendations, this week’s Playlist has new tracks from Jack Harlow, Jessie Ware, Four Tet and more. More