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      ‘Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ Review: Her Lonely Heart Calls

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      This film from Kasi Lemmons is a jukebox retelling of Whitney Houston’s parabola from sweatshirts to sequins.No one could sing like Whitney Houston, and Kasi Lemmons, the director of the biopic “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” only rarely asks her lead, Naomi Ackie, to try. This is a jukebox retelling of Houston’s parabola from sweatshirts to sequins, from church choir girl to tabloid fixture, from her teenage romance with Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams), the woman who would continue on as her creative director, to her volatile marriage to Bobby Brown (Ashton Sanders), who slithers into the movie licking his lips like he’s hungry to eat her alive.Those beats are here. But it’s the melodies that matter, those moments when Ackie opens her mouth to channel Houston’s previously recorded songs. We’ve heard Houston’s rendition of “I Will Always Love You” countless times, and Lemmons bets, correctly, that the beloved hit will still seize us by the heart during the rather forthright montage she pairs with it, images of Houston marrying Brown, birthing her daughter Bobbi Kristina and honoring Nelson Mandela underneath a sky filled with fireworks.Ackie doesn’t much resemble the superstar, although her carriage is correct: eyes closed, head flung back, arms pushing away the air as if to make room for that mezzo-soprano. That the film sticks to Houston’s surfaces is half excusable. The screenwriter Anthony McCarten seems to find that the woman underneath the pop star shell was still struggling to define herself at the time of her death at the age of 48. We see her raised to be the mini-me of her mother, the singer Cissy Houston (Tamara Tunie), complete with matching haircut, and then handed over to a recording label to be transformed into America’s Princess, a crown she wore with hesitance, and, later, resentment. (Stanley Tucci plays her friendly, Fagin-with-a-combover Clive Davis of Arista Records, who also produced this film.) At Houston’s final “Oprah” performance, recreated here, she belts an earnest ballad called, “I Didn’t Know My Own Strength.”Houston didn’t write her own material; she just sang like she did, courtesy of Cissy’s fastidious coaching. “God gives you a gift, you got to use it right,” Cissy lectures. Yet, Houston as seen here can only say yes or no to other people’s ideas of what she should sing, wear and do. (A camera pan suggests, unconvincingly, that Houston thought of the film’s title track as a love song to Crawford.) Increasingly, she chooses opposition. Her successes are shared — and her money swallowed up by her father (Clarke Peters), who was also her manager — but her mistakes are all hers. (Even though Lemmons takes care to include a scene in which Houston absolves Brown of her crack addiction.)Houston’s defiance is the movie’s attempt to answer the great mystery of her career: why she deliberately damaged her voice through smoking and hard drugs. “It’s like leaving a Stradivarius in the rain!” Davis yelps. The trouble with a gift, the film decides, is it went undervalued by Houston herself, who assumes she’ll be able to hit bombastic high notes every night of her poorly reviewed final world tour. In this doomed stretch, the camera creeps so close to Ackie that you can count the beads of sweat on her nose. The smothering is heavy-handed, yet apropos for an artist who never had the space, or creative motivation, to fully express herself.Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With SomebodyRated PG-13 for drugs, cigarettes and swearing. Running time: 2 hours 26 minutes. In theaters. More

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      New Year’s Eve in New York City: What to Do, See and Eat

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      Ring in the holiday just like the old days — in person.I’m going to close out 2022 by opening my front door and having fun in person. Unlike last New Year’s Eve, New York is back in the business of live entertainment for New Year’s Eve. I might have to wear a mask, but like Whitney Houston, I want to dance with somebody.Here’s a guide to what’s going on in New York City, from the festivities in Times Square and midnight concerts to cooking classes and family-friendly events. We have you covered, whether you’re still reveling at sunup or in bed by countdown.Ball Drop and FireworksIf you want to watch the ball drop in person, start planning your night now. For everything you need to know, visit the Times Square Alliance, which will host a free live webcast on New Year’s Eve starting at 6 p.m.; you can also stream the festivities at TimesSquareBall.net.For broadcasts from Times Square, you have two options: “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest,” with Ciara singing at midnight (8 p.m. on ABC); CNN’s live New Year’s Eve show, hosted by Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen with performances by Usher, Ellie Goulding and Patti LaBelle (8 p.m.).If you want to venture outside Manhattan, or if you live in Brooklyn, for the first time since 2020 Grand Army Plaza will host an evening of music before fireworks at midnight. Fireworks also go off in Central Park at that time (more on that below).For the best views of fireworks set off near Liberty Island, try the water. Circle Line offers a three-hour party cruise, leaving from Pier 83 in Manhattan, and Empress Cruises hosts a party on its boat called the Timeless, leaving from Pier 36. Both events include food, an open bar, music and panoramic views of fireworks.Pop and Rock ConcertsTrey Anastasio of Phish at Madison Square Garden.Chad Batka for The New York TimesAs midnight inches closer, let music set the mood. Gogol Bordello brings its Eastern European punk-swing sounds to the Brooklyn Bowl, and the producer-composer Flying Lotus leads a night of electronic music at Webster Hall. Or say goodbye to 2022 with the jam bands Phish, at Madison Square Garden, or Gov’t Mule, at the Beacon Theater. On the dance floor is where you’ll be when !!! plays the Sultan Room; same with Reggae Fest Live at the King’s Theater, featuring Serani and Wayne Wonder. And listen up, Gen X: The Gowanus performance space Littlefield hosts “New Year’s Eve with the Smiths,” a concert by the Smiths Tribute NYC, an homage to the ’80s British band.Dance (and Skate) PartiesLooking for something more offbeat? The immersive Romp on 26th: A New Year at Chelsea Table + Stage features an evening of burlesque by Seedy Edie and Audrey Love, who will perform throughout the evening. (Black tie is suggested.) Shoot for the moon at the Bushwick entertainment venue House of Yes, which describes its queer-friendly Gala Galactica party as “a celebration of all things cosmic”; recommended looks include “interstellar shine” and “alien superstar.” Nowadays, a club in Ridgewood, Queens, hosts New Year’s Nonstop, an almost 24-hour dance party that kicks off at 8 p.m. and continues until New Year’s Day afternoon.For old-school fun, lace up your skates with Skate Crates, a roller skating club that’s taking over an event space in Midwood, Brooklyn, for its New Year’s Eve Celebration Skate; there will be a vegetarian/vegan menu and a midnight toast, but bring your own skates. Royal Palms, a 21+ shuffleboard club in Gowanus, Brooklyn, is hosting its Flamingo Formal, a not-too-formal dance party with the option to play on one of its regulation-size courts.More Shows: Classical, Jazz and ComedyNot much of a dancer? You’ve got options too. A classical music holiday tradition for over 30 years, New Year’s Eve Concert for Peace returns to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, featuring Holst’s “St. Paul’s Suite” and the premiere of Joseph Turrin’s “Lullaby for Vaska.”For jazz lovers, the trumpeter Chris Botti plays two shows as part of his annual holiday residency at the Blue Note. And the singer-comedienne Sandra Bernhard takes the mic at Joe’s Pub for two performances.The comedy club Caroline’s, which recently announced it was closing, will present its final two shows at its home near Broadway and 50th St. And the nonagenarian singer Marilyn Maye performs twice at the Birdland Jazz Club in Times Square, including at the 7 p.m. show, allowing enough time to get home before the neighborhood goes haywire.Family-Friendly EventsThe Rockettes in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesParents will appreciate early-bird opportunities to welcome Baby New Year. The Staten Island Children’s Museum hosts a four-hour Noon Year’s Eve Dance Party, with a balloon drop at noon. The Long Island Children’s Museum, in Garden City, N.Y., hosts its own ball drops at noon and 4 p.m., along with crafts and a dance party.For live entertainment, there are many options. Circus Abyssinia: Tulu, a new production from the Ethiopian troupe of aerialists and jugglers, has a noon matinee at the New Victory Theater. Blue Man Group is hustling, with three shows at the Astor Place Theater, and it’s a two-matinee day for the Rockettes in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. New York City Ballet offers a 2 p.m. “Nutcracker” at the Koch Theater.Cooking ClassesTreats at Raaka Chocolate in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesIf you need a thoughtful hostess gift for a New Year’s Eve party, or if you want to stuff your own face, try a dessert class. Raaka Chocolate offers three afternoon truffle-making sessions at its chocolate factory in Red Hook, Brooklyn. You’ll cut and hand roll ganache, learn to temper chocolate — that’s the tricky part — and then decorate with unroasted cacao powder and gold powder. You’ll leave with your own box of about 15 handmade dark chocolate truffles that are single origin, vegan (they’re made with coconut milk) and gluten-free.Milk Bar NYC is offering an afternoon birthday cake assembling class, no baking required. You’ll learn how to cut cake rounds and stack each layer with frosting and crumbs to make a 6-inch cake, then use scraps from the cake to make truffles — all to take home. The class will be held at Milk Bar NYC’s flagship store in NoMad.Midnight Run and HikesBear Mountain Inn at Harriman State Park, an hour’s drive north of New York City.Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesFor something more venturesome, Adventure Untamed, a group that organizes guided outdoor experiences for New Yorkers, offers a New Year’s Eve day hike in Harriman State Park, about an hour’s drive from New York City, with a stop for hot chocolate afterward at the cozy Bear Mountain Inn in Tomkins Cove, N.Y.To welcome 2023 the heart-racing way, do the New York Road Runners Midnight Run in Central Park, a four-mile race that starts when the fireworks go off at midnight. The course is a real beauty: It takes you from Bethesda Terrace, past the Reservoir and back down again. More

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      Best Classical Music of 2022

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      Fresh takes on Mozart, Dvorak and Debussy, and newer works by Dewa Alit, Kate Soper and Caroline Shaw are among our favorite recordings this year.Dewa Alit: ‘Likad’“Chasing the Phantom”; Dewa Alit and Gamelan Salukat (Black Truffle)Dewa Alit: “Likad”Black TruffleThis Balinese composer combines two different gamelan scales in his latest project. Just as you start to grasp the harmonic implications, his ensemble begins navigating virtuoso rhythm changes. Recommended if you like innovative tunings, torrid riffing, blooming transitions of percussive color, or hip-hop beat-tapes. SETH COLTER WALLSAnonymous: ‘Orante Sancta Lucia’“Mother Sister Daughter”; Musica Secreta; Laurie Stras, director (Lucky Music)“Orante sancta Lucia”Lucky MusicMusica Secreta — its name inspired by the mystery still surrounding works written by and for Renaissance and Baroque women — is pressing into tantalizingly early repertoire from around the turn of the 16th century, including this “Vespers of St. Lucy” and other rare polyphonic settings of psalm antiphons (chants sung alongside psalm verses) believed to have originated in Italian convents. ZACHARY WOOLFEBach: ‘Erbarme dich’“Matthäus-Passion”; Lucile Richardot, mezzo-soprano; Pygmalion; Raphaël Pichon, conductor (Harmonia Mundi)Bach: “Erbarme dich”Harmonia MundiIt’s been a good year for Raphaël Pichon and his period ensemble Pygmalion: critically adored opera stagings and excellent recordings, including one for the pantheon of “St. Matthew Passion” accounts. Hear how, alongside precision, the purity of sound — in the strings, and in Lucile Richardot’s robust yet smooth tone — maintains rending beauty and a softly dancing lilt. JOSHUA BARONEBeethoven: Variation 24, Fughetta (Andante)Beethoven: “Diabelli” Variations; Mitsuko Uchida, piano (Decca)Beethoven: Variation 24, Fughetta (Andante)DeccaMitsuko Uchida playing Beethoven: It’s a self-recommending prospect, really. Still, it’s a mark of this pianist’s surpassing artistry that her “Diabellis” prove so unerringly fine. There is elegance, of course, and sensitivity; a wink or two of wit even breaks through, though Uchida is not exactly looking for laughs. What is so striking, rather, is how scrupulously she rethinks each variation, even as she ensures that each finds its rightful place in the whole. DAVID ALLENGeorges Bizet: ‘La fleur que tu m’avais jetée’“Arias”; Jonathan Tetelman, tenor; Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria; Karel Mark Chichon, conductor (Deutsche Grammophon)Georges Bizet: “La fleur que tu m’avais jetée”Deutsche GrammophonOn his debut album, Jonathan Tetelman lavishes his sumptuous tenor and almost poetic attention on classic Romantic and verismo arias. For the “Flower Song” from “Carmen,” Tetelman cushions the contours of his phrases, hooks into high notes without breaking the musical line and nails the diminuendo on the high B flat. OUSSAMA ZAHRConnie Converse: ‘One by One’“Walking in the Dark”; Julia Bullock, soprano; Christian Reif, piano (Nonesuch)Connie Converse: “One by One”NonesuchAt last we have a solo album from Julia Bullock. As debuts go, it’s eclectic and understated, and astonishing for its intensity of feeling with such restraint — perhaps most so in “One by One.” This track, by the pioneering but elusive singer-songwriter Connie Converse, is here whispered and prayerful, with the intimacy and elegance of an Ivesian parlor song. JOSHUA BARONEAnthony Davis: ‘Shoot Your Shot!’“X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X”; Boston Modern Orchestra Project; Odyssey Opera Chorus; Gil Rose, Conductor (BMOP Sound)Anthony Davis: “Shoot Your Shot!”BMOP SoundIn which a young Malcolm Little — not yet surnamed X — receives a tour of Boston while listeners get a sense of what makes Davis one of today’s great opera composers: Simultaneous warmth and apprehension in lines for Malcolm’s sister Ella hint at both spirituals and Berg. Yet her warnings collide with a pool hall hustler’s even more compelling pitch, eloquent and brash in the manner of Mingus. SETH COLTER WALLSDebussy: ‘Pelléas part ce soir’“Pelléas et Mélisande”; Vannina Santoni, soprano; Alexandre Duhamel, baritone; Jean Teitgen, bass; Les Siècles; François-Xavier Roth, conductor (Harmonia Mundi)Debussy: “Pelléas part ce soir”Harmonia MundiCloser and closer to our own time stride François-Xavier Roth and the period-instrument players of Les Siècles, and on, too, toward ever more revealing interpretations. Supporting somewhat lighter voices than the norm, Les Siècles’ gut strings and piping winds give Debussy’s more delicate writing a glinting fragility, his outbursts of violence a raw savagery. This is “Pelléas” not as a mystery play, but as an unsparingly forceful drama. DAVID ALLENDvorak and PUBLIQuartet: Improvisations on String Quartet No. 12, Allegro ma non troppo“What Is American”; PUBLIQuartet (Bright Shiny Things)Dvorak and PUBLIQuartet: Improvisations on String Quartet No. 12, Allegro ma non troppoBright Shiny ThingsDvorak’s “American” quartet has elicited dozens of winning, faithful recordings. This one has other goals. As the performers improvise around the original material, they attain a communion with Dvorak’s love of Black American music that most other interpreters fail to achieve. SETH COLTER WALLSJulius Eastman: ‘Stay On It’“Julius Eastman, Vol. 2: Joy Boy”; Wild Up (New Amsterdam)Julius Eastman: “Stay On It”New AmsterdamThe Los Angeles ensemble Wild Up has embarked on a series of recordings of the once-forgotten music of Julius Eastman (1940-90). The second installment closes with the bright party of “Stay On It,” a paean to community that veers between precision and lush chaos: troubled by shadows but ultimately, patiently, quietly triumphant. ZACHARY WOOLFEMary Halvorson: ‘Side Effect’“Amaryllis”; Mary Halvorson Sextet; Mivos Quartet (Nonesuch)Mary Halvorson: “Side Effect”NonesuchAfter spending part of the pandemic studying up on string quartet writing, this guitarist and composer collaborated with the Mivos Quartet on two enjoyable albums released this year. For this exultant and meticulously patterned work, Halvorson invited the string quartet into her standing sextet of improvising players, creating her richest ensemble sound yet. SETH COLTER WALLSHenze: ‘Tristan’s Folly’“Tristan”; Igor Levit, piano; Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra; Franz Welser-Möst, conductor (Sony)Henze: “Tristan’s Folly”SonyAnother astonishing recording from the pianist Igor Levit, “Tristan” is bookended by Liszt and includes dreamlike solo transcriptions of the Adagio from Mahler’s 10th Symphony and Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” Prelude. But the album centers on Hans Werner Henze’s postmodern “Tristan” (1973), which musters piano, tape and orchestra to reckon with the Germanic tradition, furthering Liszt, Wagner and Mahler’s bendings of time and harmony. ZACHARY WOOLFEKorngold: ‘The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex’ Overture“Hollywood Soundstage”; Sinfonia of London; John Wilson, conductor (Chandos)Korngold: “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex” OvertureChandosIt would be easy to argue that a track from any of the five sensational recordings John Wilson and his elite Sinfonia of London have released this year should be on this list, but every time I play this Korngold, I find it hard to move on to anything else. The virtuosity Wilson lavishes on a composer he is determined to restore to stature is stunning, no matter how many times you hear it. DAVID ALLENAndrew McIntosh: ‘Little Jimmy at the End of Winter’“Little Jimmy”; Yarn/Wire (Kairos)Andrew McIntosh: “Little Jimmy at the End of Winter”KairosNamed for a campsite in California where Andrew McIntosh made field recordings a few months before it was devastated by a fire, “Little Jimmy” (2020) folds those recordings of birds and wind into alternately shimmering and chalk-hard music for piano-percussion quartet. The natural world is wondrous, McIntosh suggests, but also stark, lonely and fragile, even threatening. ZACHARY WOOLFEMendelssohn: String Quartet No. 1, Andante espressivoMendelssohn: Complete String Quartets, Vol. 1; Quatuor Van Kuijk (Alpha Classics)Mendelssohn: String Quartet No. 1, Andante espressivoAlpha ClassicsThe latest Quatuor Van Kuijk recording, the first in a promised survey of Mendelssohn’s string quartets, is, like the group’s previous outings, vigorously and precisely executed, and — without cluttering affect — expressed with refreshing, sometimes revelatory, straightforwardness. Particularly in the slow movement of the Op. 12 Quartet in E flat, whose direct phrasing has an irresistibly simple, moving sweetness. JOSHUA BARONEMozart: Piano Sonata No. 16 in C, AndanteMozart: The Piano Sonatas; Robert Levin, fortepiano (ECM)Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 16 in C, AndanteECMAn impossible challenge: Choose a single track from the dozens in Robert Levin’s tirelessly lively, eloquent collection of Mozart’s piano sonatas, recorded on their composer’s own fortepiano. But, to pick almost at random, the slow movement from the “Sonata Facile” (K. 545) demonstrates the sensitivity, sustained legato and dashing embellishments that characterize Levin’s whole, sprawling set. ZACHARY WOOLFEMozart and Vikingur Ólafsson: ‘Laudate Dominum’“From Afar”; Vikingur Ólafsson, piano (Deutsche Grammophon)Mozart and Vikingur Ólafsson: “Laudate Dominum”Deutsche GrammophonVikingur Ólafsson has emerged in his recordings as not only one of the most thoughtful pianists of our time, but also one of the finest arrangers. Something of anti-Liszt, he humbly translates the essence of each work, such as in his treatment of Mozart’s “Laudate Dominum,” whose flowing melody over an arpeggiated accompaniment could pass for one of the composer’s delicate sonatas. JOSHUA BARONEPejacevic: Symphony in F Sharp Minor, FinaleDora Pejacevic: Piano Concerto and Symphony in F Sharp Minor; BBC Symphony Orchestra; Sakari Oramo, conductor (Chandos)Pejacevic: Symphony in F Sharp Minor, FinaleChandosSakari Oramo has long been a friend to the hardly heard, and it is to his credit that he is now lending his persuasive skills to the effort to bring female composers to greater prominence. His righteous advocacy certainly blazes for the Croatian Dora Pejacevic, who died in 1923 at just 37; her bold symphony, finished in 1920, might be in the Dvorakian tradition, but Oramo leaves you in no doubt of its fundamentally adventurous spirit. DAVID ALLENRossini: ‘Céleste providence’“French Bel Canto Arias”; Lisette Oropesa, soprano; Saxon State Opera Chorus Dresden; Dresden Philharmonic; Corrado Rovaris, conductor (Pentatone)Rossini: “Céleste providence”PentatoneA peerless bel canto interpreter, the soprano Lisette Oropesa combed through her bread-and-butter repertoire to come up with an album’s worth of material in French, her favorite language to sing. In this showstopper from Rossini’s elegant comic opera “Le Comte Ory,” Oropesa’s classy singing sneaks subtle flecks of color into fiendish runs taken at the speed of light. OUSSAMA ZAHROthmar Schoeck: ‘Liebesfrühling’“Elegie”; Christian Gerhaher, baritone; Basel Chamber Orchestra; Heinz Holliger, conductor (Sony Classical)Othmar Schoeck: “Liebesfrühling”Sony ClassicalThe baritone Christian Gerhaher mumbles, sighs and occasionally sings full out amid the stark, transfixing musical landscapes of Othmar Schoeck’s orchestral song cycle “Elegie.” “Liebesfrühling” turns the metaphor of spring inside out, locating in its verdancy memories that cause anguish, as Gerhaher’s voice rises to a pained pitch suffused with light. OUSSAMA ZAHRSchubert, arranged by Liszt: ‘Der Doppelgänger’“Mein Traum”; Stéphane Degout, baritone; Pygmalion; Raphaël Pichon, conductor (Harmonia Mundi)Schubert, arranged by Liszt: “Der Doppelgänger”Harmonia MundiThe conductor Raphaël Pichon’s brilliantly curated album with Pygmalion and the baritone Stéphane Degout, “Mein Traum,” is a marvel of sustained tension in melancholy hues. “Der Doppelgänger” exemplifies their shared purpose: Singer and orchestra, breathing as one, crescendo ever so slowly into a climax of uncanny horror. OUSSAMA ZAHRCaroline Shaw: ‘How Do I Find You’“How Do I Find You”; Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano; Kirill Kuzmin, piano (Pentatone)Caroline Shaw: “How Do I Find You”PentatoneThe mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke kicks off her album about the pandemic with the emotional wreckage of the title track by Caroline Shaw. Over a simple sequence of diatonic chords, played with compassion by the pianist Kirill Kuzmin, Cooke describes a couple circling their feelings with an amber-toned voice suspended between tears and solace. OUSSAMA ZAHRKate Soper: ‘The Understanding of All Things’“The Understanding of All Things”; Kate Soper and Sam Pluta (New Focus)Kate Soper: “The Understanding of All Things”New FocusIn Kate Soper’s playfully searching album, she doesn’t reach some universal understanding. Instead, her title track’s fragmented telling of a Kafka story, recounted through vocalise and Laurie Anderson-like elevated speech over the sound of a spinning top, seems to make a statement, but with the syntax of a question. Figuring out what to make of that is part of the fun. JOSHUA BARONEStrauss: ‘Macbeth’“Richard Strauss: Three Tone Poems”; Cleveland Orchestra; Franz Welser-Möst, conductor (Cleveland Orchestra)Strauss: “Macbeth”Cleveland OrchestraThere is no more glorious demonstration than this of what makes the partnership between the Cleveland Orchestra and its music director so special. Listen closely to any section of the orchestra, and you will hear playing that is little short of immaculate; draw back to listen to the whole, and you will find Welser-Möst, at his most direct, turn a Strauss piece that most conductors ignore into a minor masterpiece. It’s exhilarating. DAVID ALLENZimmermann: ‘Alagoana,’ IV. Caboclo“Bernd Alois Zimmermann: Recomposed”; WDR Sinfonieorchester; Heinz Holliger, conductor (Wergo)Zimmermann: “Alagoana,” IV. CabocloWergoAfter World War II, the modernist composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann produced orchestral arrangements of French chansons and Villa-Lobos for West German radio. The conductor (and oboist) Holliger has rescued those sparkling adaptations from oblivion. Crucially, he also provides fresh looks at Zimmermann originals like “Alagoana,” with its funhouse-mirror reflections of Villa-Lobos (and Milhaud). SETH COLTER WALLS More

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      Day 22: A Very Bollywood Christmas

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      In my Indian American family, where no occasion passes without celebration, getting into the Christmas spirit means grooving to Bollywood music. Though none of our elders grew up celebrating Christmas, they’ve embraced it wholly, and when we come together for Christmas dinner at my in-law’s home in Los Angeles, everyone has a task. While the moms roast the nuts with chaat masala and the dads gather ’round the wine, my job is to sync my phone to a bluetooth speaker and play deejay. My father-in-law, Vrajesh Lal, the family’s patriarch, begins the evening with a full glass of pinot noir and a request for “something Christmas-y,” like “Elvis’ Christmas Album.” (Having immigrated from India to the U.S. in 1972, Vrajesh is a big fan of Elvis.) But when the nuts give way to Cornish game hens and cumin-crusted squash (for the vegetarians), he never fails to flag me down with a new directive: “Let’s put on some Bollywood, huh?” My playlist includes Bhangra-style covers of Christmas music, with beats that hail from north India, songs from the Bollywood Brass Band and some of my father-in-law’s favorite Bollywood hits. Even the King cannot compete with this family’s compulsion to celebrate Christmas with jams from the mother country.The album, “A Jolly Bolly Christmas,” features Bollywood and Bhangra versions of Christmas classics. Keda Records More

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      Onstage, It’s Finally Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas Again

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      The Rockettes are high-kicking their way through the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. The Sugarplum Fairy, after an unsought interregnum, is presiding over the Land of Sweets at the New York City Ballet. All around the country, choirs are singing hallelujahs in Handel’s “Messiah” and Scrooges are learning to replace bahs with blessings.After two years of Christmastime washouts — there was 2020, when live performance was still impossible in many places, and then last winter, when the Omicron wave stopped many productions — arts-lovers and arts institutions say that they are determined that this will be their first fully staged holiday in three years.“It feels absolutely like the first Christmas post-Covid — there are more tourists in town, Times Square feels very alive again, people are venturing out in a way that I haven’t witnessed since 2019, and sales are more robust across the board,” said Eva Price, a Broadway producer whose musical last year, “Jagged Little Pill,” permanently closed as Omicron bore down, but whose new musical, “& Juliet,” is thriving as this year’s holidays near.Performances of holiday fare, including “The Nutcracker,” Handel’s “Messiah” and, here, “A Christmas Carol,” have become treasured rituals for many families.Cooper Neill for The New York TimesFor arts lovers and arts presenters, late December looms large. Performances of “The Nutcracker,” “A Christmas Carol” and “Messiah” are cherished holiday traditions for many families. Those events are also vital sources of revenue for the organizations that present them. And on Broadway, year-end is when houses are fullest and grosses are highest.“‘A Christmas Carol’ is the lifeblood of our institution,” said Kevin Moriarty, the artistic director of Dallas Theater Center, which first staged an adaptation of the Dickens classic in 1969, and had been doing so annually since 1979 until the pandemic. Most seasons, the play is the theater’s top seller.Last year, Moriarty’s effort to bring the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future back onstage — still with mask and vaccine requirements for the audience — faltered when Omicron hit, and the final 11 days of the run were canceled. “It just felt like the knockout blow we hadn’t seen coming — it felt like things will never get back to normal,” Moriarty said.Handel’s “Messiah” was back at Trinity Church Wall Street in Manhattan. Calla Kessler for The New York TimesDallas was one of many arts institutions wounded by Omicron. The Center Theater Group of Los Angeles canceled 22 of 40 scheduled performances of “A Christmas Carol,” losing about $1.5 million. On Broadway, grosses dropped 57 percent from Thanksgiving week to Christmas week, when 128 performances were canceled. Radio City Music Hall ended its run of the “Christmas Spectacular” with the Rockettes more than a week before Christmas. And the New York City Ballet canceled 17 of 47 scheduled performances of “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker,” costing it about $5 million.“The virus just made it impossible to go on,” said Katherine E. Brown, the executive director of the New York City Ballet, where “The Nutcracker” has been a tradition since 1954. “It was more than a little depressing, and there were lots of disappointed people, onstage and off.”This year: so far, so good. “It’s going really well,” Brown said. “I don’t want to tempt the fates by saying that too loudly, but it’s actually back to prepandemic levels, and even slightly higher. It feels like we’re really back, and the energy in the houses is just phenomenal.”Of course there are still viruses in the air this year: public health officials are warning of a “tripledemic” of the coronavirus, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, known as R.S.V. Covid cases and hospitalizations have risen nationally since Thanksgiving, and New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, donned a face mask on Tuesday as he urged New Yorkers to take precautions. One new Broadway play, “The Collaboration,” had to cancel several performances this week, including its opening night, after someone in the company tested positive for the coronavirus.But with Christmas just days away, there have yet to be the wholesale closings that marred last year. And now most people over six months old can be vaccinated, and there is a new bivalent vaccine, lowering both risk and anxiety.“We learned a lot from last year: there are more understudies in place, there is more crew coverage, and we have contingency plans that feel more spelled out,” Price said. Brown agreed, saying, “Through the school of hard knocks, we’re better at managing through it.”“George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker” is being staged once again by New York City Ballet, which had to cut its run short last winter because of Omicron. Sterling Hyltin danced the Sugarplum Fairy in a performance last month. Erin BaianoThe upheaval last winter upended many holiday plans.Mike Rhone, a quality assurance engineer in Santa Clara, Calif., had tickets to the Broadway musicals “Hadestown,” “Flying Over Sunset” and “Caroline, or Change,” and planned to propose to his partner in front of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.Instead he proposed at home, on the couch. But they’ll try again this year, with tickets to “Kimberly Akimbo,” “Ohio State Murders,” “Merrily We Roll Along” and the Rockettes. “We’ll definitely get that photo in front of the Rockefeller Center tree,” Rhone said, “just as married people instead of newly-engaged.”Shannon Buster, a civil engineer from Kansas City, Mo., had tickets last year to several Broadway shows and a set of hard-to-score restaurant reservations. “The night before we left, we watched handsome David Muir deliver dire news about Omicron surging, Broadway shows closing, restaurants closing, and we canceled,” she said. This year, she was determined to make the trip happen: “I swear by all that is holy that even an outbreak of rabid, flesh-eating bacteria will not keep me from it.” Last weekend, she and her husband made the delayed trip, trying out some new restaurants and seeing “Death of a Salesman” and “A Strange Loop.”For performers, this year is a welcome relief.Scott Mello, a tenor, has been singing Handel’s “Messiah” at Trinity Church Wall Street each Christmas season since 2015. Last year he found himself singing the “Messiah” at home, in the shower, but it wasn’t the same. “It didn’t feel like Christmas,” he said. This year, he added, “feels like an unveiling.”Ashley Hod, a soloist with New York City Ballet, has been part of its “Nutcracker” for much of her life — she performed in it as a child, when she was studying at the ballet’s school, and joined the cast as an apprentice in 2012; since then she has performed most of the women’s roles. Last year she rehearsed for two months to get ready to go on as the Sugarplum Fairy, but the show was canceled before her turn arrived.“It was devastating,” she said.This year, she’s on as a soloist, and thrilled. “We all have a new appreciation for it,” she said. “Everyone feels really lucky to be back.”On Broadway, things are looking up: Thanksgiving week was the top-grossing week since theaters reopened. And there are other signs of seasonal spending: Jefferson Mays’s virtuosic one-man version of “A Christmas Carol,” which he performed without an audience for streaming when the pandemic made in-person performances impossible, finally made it to Broadway, and is selling strongly as Christmas approaches.Beyond Broadway, things are better too. In New Orleans on Tuesday night, Christmas Without Tears returned — it’s a rambunctious and star-studded annual variety show hosted by the performers Harry Shearer and Judith Owen to raise money for charity (this year, Innocence Project New Orleans).Some “Messiah” fans seemed to be in the Christmas spirit. Calla Kessler for The New York Times“The audience was so primed, ready, and wanting the show,” Owen said. “It was like they’d waited two years for this.”But there are also reasons for sobriety: Broadway’s overall grosses this season are still about 13 percent below what they were in 2019, and this fall a number of shows, struggling to find audiences, have been forced to close. Around the country, many performing arts organizations have been unable to bring audiences back at prepandemic levels.Not everyone is rushing back. Erich Meager, a visual artist in Palm Springs, had booked 10 shows over six nights last December. Then the Rockettes closed, then “Jagged Little Pill,” then two more. “Each morning we would wake up and see what shows were canceled and search for replacements, a less than ideal theater experience,” he said. “This year we are staying close to home for the holidays, but next year we’ll be back.”But many patrons are ready to celebrate.“There have been so many virtual performances, but it’s not really the same thing,” said Luciana Sikula, a Manhattan fashion industry worker who had been attending a performance of “Messiah” annually at Trinity Church Wall Street until the pandemic, and finally got to experience it again in person again this month.Jeffrey Carter, a music professor from St. Louis who had booked and canceled five trips to New York since the pandemic began, finally made it this week; he checked out the new Museum of Broadway as well as an exhibit at the Grolier Club, caught the Oratorio Society of New York’s “Messiah” at Carnegie Hall, and saw “A Man of No Importance,” “A Strange Loop” and “Little Shop of Horrors.” “I’m packing in N.Y.C. at Christmastime in four days and four nights,” he said, “and I’m catching up — in person — with people I love.” More

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      Elayne Jones, Pioneering Percussionist, Is Dead at 94

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      She challenged racial barriers when she joined the San Francisco Symphony in 1972. But she became embroiled in a legal battle when she was denied tenure two years later.Elayne Jones, a timpanist who was said to be the first Black principal player in a major American orchestra when she joined the San Francisco Symphony in 1972, and who mounted a legal battle over racial and sexual discrimination when she was denied tenure two years later, died on Saturday at her home in Walnut Creek, Calif. She was 94.Her daughter Cheryl Stanley said the cause was dementia.The charismatic, Juilliard-trained Ms. Jones was not only a rare woman among the orchestral percussionists of her time; she also helped lead a generation of Black musicians in confronting the pervasive — and enduring — racism of the classical music industry. Her appointment in San Francisco, under that ensemble’s modish music director, Seiji Ozawa, “projected a forward-looking vision of classical music,” the scholar Grace Wang has written.Admired for her lyricism and finesse, Ms. Jones was an instant hit in San Francisco. “Her playing is so outlandish in quality, one gets the titters just thinking of it,” the critic Heuwell Tircuit wrote in The San Francisco Chronicle of her debut. Arthur Bloomfield of The San Francisco Examiner wrote that her work in a seemingly straightforward passage of “Norma,” at the San Francisco Opera, was “so rounded and suave I just about fell out of my seat.”Once described in a headline as “the groovy tympanist,” Ms. Jones had seen the San Francisco auditions as a last chance to win a permanent post, a success that had been denied her during the two decades she spent toiling to challenge the color line as a freelancer in New York City.“I had to prove that music could be played by anyone who loves it,” she said in 1973. “It’s been a terrible burden because I always felt I had to do better, that I wouldn’t be allowed the lapses other musicians have. It’s true even now.”Orchestral musicians typically serve probationary periods before being granted tenure. Approval seemed a formality in Ms. Jones’s case, but a seven-man committee of the San Francisco players voted against her — and a bassoonist, Ryohei Nakagawa — in May 1974, despite Mr. Ozawa’s advice to the contrary; two rated her competence at 1 out of 100.As audience members launched pickets and petitions, many white critics portrayed the incident primarily as a challenge to Mr. Ozawa’s authority; though the conductor denied any link, he soon quit. Ms. Jones saw things differently.“I’ve had good vibes everywhere. Now I wonder what the hell is wrong and what do I do that’s so wrong?” she said that June, announcing her intention to sue the orchestra and the musicians’ union. “Was it because I was a woman or a Black? Or both?”Ms. Jones played on for a season while her lawsuit made its way through the courts. But when a judge ordered a second, supervised vote in August 1975, a new committee of players turned her down again, citing concerns about her intonation. Although she performed, tenured, in the pit of the San Francisco Opera until 1998, her effective firing at the symphony stayed with her.“It has been quite difficult,” she said in a television interview in 1977, “not only playing but trying to live through all this, and living with myself too, which is kind of hard because you begin to question, well, am I really a good performer, am I worthy person?”But, she went on, “I listen to other people, and I have more confidence in myself.”Ms. Jones looked on as the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and the conductor Seiji Ozawa acknowledged the audience’s applause after a performance by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra at the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory in 1973.Bruce Beron, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony ArchivesElayne Viola Jones was born on Jan. 30, 1928, in Harlem, the only child of immigrants from Barbados. Her father, Cecil, was a porter and then a subway conductor; her mother, Ometa, dreamed of becoming a professional pianist, but had to enter domestic service. They had a piano in their apartment, and Elayne used it to play along with the big-band jazz she heard on the radio. She was 6 when her mother introduced her to classical music.“At first, I thought it was strange to have music that people didn’t dance to, because we all loved dancing to swing music,” Ms. Jones wrote in her autobiography, “Little Lady With a Big Drum” (2019). “However, I didn’t reject this different kind of music and practiced it every day, growing to enjoy its irregularities.”She qualified for the High School of Music & Arts (now the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and the Performing Arts), and she hoped to add the violin to her studies on the piano; she was given drumsticks instead. “We all know that Negroes have rhythm,” she recalled a teacher saying.Ms. Jones was sufficiently talented to win a scholarship to the Juilliard School in 1945, under the sponsorship of Duke Ellington. Her tutor was Saul Goodman, the storied timpanist of the New York Philharmonic, and after she graduated, in 1949, he persuaded New York City Opera to hire her as its timpanist.But the City Opera season was limited, and she had to scrounge for jobs for much of the year; on tour with the company, she was forced to sleep in separate hotels from the other musicians, stopped at stage doors as white colleagues walked through, and told to perform hidden from view.Politically a leftist, Ms. Jones became an insistent activist. When the critic Howard Taubman wrote in The New York Times in 1956 that “if there are capable Negro musicians” they would deserve major-ensemble jobs, she visited him to demonstrate that such musicians did, in fact, exist. She worked on an Urban League report about racism in the music world; within weeks of its publication in 1958, she found herself filling in at the New York Philharmonic. Although the Philharmonic’s records of substitute players are sparse, archival documents name her as the first Black musician to perform as part of the orchestra.Ms. Jones left City Opera in 1960 at the request of her husband, the doctor and civil rights activist George Kaufman, who asked that she spend more evenings with him and their three children. But Leopold Stokowski, long a fan, quickly tapped her for his American Symphony Orchestra, for which she performed until 1972. She was one of the driving forces behind the founding of the integrated Symphony of the New World in 1965, and she joined other Black musicians to urge that the initial rounds of auditions be held blind, with the musicians behind a screen, to reduce bias. The San Francisco Symphony was an early adopter of that approach.“I wouldn’t have gotten the job if the screen wasn’t in play,” she later told Dr. Wang. “I’m the recipient of a thing that I worked on.”Ms. Jones’s marriage to Dr. Kaufman ended in divorce in 1964. In addition to her daughter Ms. Stanley, she is survived by her son, Stephen Kaufman, a violinist and performance artist also known as Thoth; another daughter, Harriet Kaufman Douglas; and three grandchildren.As a single mother, Ms. Jones often had to take her children to rehearsals, she told The Times in 1965. She hoped, she said, that she offered them an example.“All youngsters need an image to project to, Negro youngsters even more than white,” she said. “When they can see Negroes playing in the orchestra, they may feel that they can get there someday, too.” More

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      ‘Everyone Wants to Hear’ This One Chord in a Christmas Carol

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      A moment in “O Come, All Ye Faithful” is so popular, it’s printed on T-shirts. But it’s also symbolic, and important to music history.Of all the music heard around Christmas, few passages rival the awe and mystery of one chord, known as the “Word of the Father” chord.It’s a rare instance of powerful drama in holiday liturgical music, more akin to Edward Elgar’s depiction of God in “The Dream of Gerontius,” or the opening of the fifth door in the Bartok opera “Bluebeard’s Castle”: a moment of total release, embracing the unknown.In British choral circles, this moment is referred to simply as “The Chord.” It comes halfway through the final verse of the popular Christmas carol “O Come, All Ye Faithful” (or “Adeste Fideles”), in a mid-20th century arrangement by David Willcocks, an original editor of the widely used “Carols for Choirs” series and a former director of music at King’s College, Cambridge. Willcocks, following a rising figure full of anticipation, places an explosive, half-diminished seventh chord under the text “Word,” resolving it elaborately over the next few measures.“It’s a startling moment,” David Hill, the musical director of the Bach Choir, said in a telephone interview. “I remember being a boy of 10 playing it in my church in Carlisle, and loving every moment of it, thinking: ‘What is this? This is outrageous!’”There’s a youthful glee in the way the popularity of “The Chord” has grown; today, the discerning church musician can get it printed on pretty much anything, including T-shirts and tree ornaments. It’s a moment, Hill said, that “everyone wants to hear. It puts a great big smile on your face.”But “The Chord” is much more than just a crunchy harmonic moment: It carries a deep symbolic resonance for the Christian community, and represents a key moment in the creation of Britain’s carol industry.Willcocks’s arrangement of “O Come, All Ye Faithful” appeared in Carols for Choirs 1, published by Oxford University Press in 1961. The idea behind the anthology — conceived by the press’s head of music, Christopher Morris — was to create a practical, codified resource for choral societies at Christmas.But what followed was far from a utilitarian compilation, with a series of florid descants, and elaborate arrangements of traditional carols like “God Rest You, Merry Gentlemen,” and “The First Nowell.” “What were ordinary carols for people to sing up to this point were, by and large, very ordinary,” Hill said. With the new Carols for Choirs hymn arrangements, he added, “you had a whole new approach to carols, which was post-Holst and Vaughan Williams.”Estimates of how many copies were sold differ, but they are measured in the millions. A sixth volume, with a more international outlook, is due for publication in 2023, edited by Hill and a fellow choral director, Bob Chilcott. Of particular acclaim in the first volume was the arrangement of “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” but not necessarily because of “The Chord.” Instead, it was the descant of the sixth verse, with its swirling setting of “Glory to God” (borrowing from “Ding Dong Merrily on High”), that drew more attention.Other musicians have their own favorite corners: a juicy chord here, an archaic lyric there, or a moment in which standard congregational hymns can be spiced up with a touch of chromatic alteration. Dr. Martin Clarke, the head of music and a senior lecturer at the Open University, said, “There are interesting moments in Willcocks’s other arrangements too; towards the end of ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’ is pretty satisfying to sing and play.” But that moment in “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” he said, “goes just a bit further.”The words set in the final verse refer to the prologue from the Gospel of John, a reading usually reserved for Christmas morning. The opening lines, “Yea, Lord we greet thee, born this happy morning,” confirm that; with some helpful amendments of tense, though, the verse has become more of a fixture at Advent services. Within its fleeting presence, “The Chord” nods to centuries of tradition: moments from Bach’s “St. John Passion,” the personal predilections of previous King’s College organists and the wider history of final-verse reharmonizations within the Anglican worship tradition.In addition, the progression that follows bears a striking resemblance to music by the English composer John Stainer, who used the same dramatic chord and elegant escape in his setting of “O Come, All Ye Faithful” — which concluded his Epiphany anthem “I Desired Wisdom,” published in 1876. But the crucial difference in Willcocks’s more famous setting is the matching of harmony with subject. Where Stainer opts to add a diminished chord to “Glory,” Willcocks instead chooses the more symbolically rich “Word.”The passage from John referenced in the final verse — “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God” — departs from the poetic images of angels, shepherds and Magi usually referenced at Christmastime. “John gets the greater sense of divine mystery and the complex significance of what he’s trying to communicate here,” Clarke said. “To line it up with that chord not just reinforces the mystery of the text; it grabs you, makes you concentrate, and makes you confront it.”“I don’t think the resonance of those words and what they refer to in the Christian tradition would really come across as strongly without that harmonization, without that chord,” he added. “It exemplifies confronting that mystery.”That power is compounded by Willcocks’s arrangement. Following the pageantry and grandeur of the sixth verse, the seventh follows in meaty unison. “It feels completely different,” Clarke said. “The great power comes from the feeling of difference that comes to everybody — not just the choristers, soloists, choir. Absolutely everybody in the congregation can get that feeling of being part of that sound. You’re right in the middle of that chord, whoever you are.” More

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      Christmas at Dollywood, With Streetmosphere and a Chicken Lady

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      Dolly Parton’s theme park gets into the holiday spirit in a way that rivals Radio City’s Rockettes — with fewer kicklines but far more fingerpicking.Parker Collins, 15, does a version of “Jingle Bells” on his banjo. “Usually I get excited, and I start playing fast,” he said.A family poses in front of the Dollywood Smoky Mountain Christmas sign at the entrance of the park.PIGEON FORGE, Tenn. — In June or July, Dollywood employees begin stringing more than six million twinkle lights across Dolly Parton’s namesake theme park, here in the Smoky Mountains.In a mad sprint just after Halloween, they add more than 650 evergreens, including a 50-footer that serves as a canvas for a light show about a polar bear. The steam train that whistles through the park is topped with a giant wreath; Santa stuffies appear as balloon pop prizes.By early November, Heidi Lou Parton, Dolly’s niece, is onstage, surrounded by glistening firs, harmonizing on “You Are My Christmas,” a song written for her father, Randy Parton. She was all of 4 when she made her debut at Dollywood, singing background vocals for Randy, one of Dolly Parton’s 11 siblings. Now 37, Heidi Lou has been performing at Dollywood ever since, including nearly a decade of Christmas shows, most of them alongside her father, aunts and cousins.All of her earliest memories are at Dollywood, she said one afternoon between gigs. “It’s an oasis for me.”Nearly 3 million people a year come to the theme park.Stacy Kranitz for The New York Times“Christmas in the Smokies” is Dollywood’s signature holiday show and has been running since 1990.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesYou don’t have to be a Parton to hold Dollywood close, especially during the holidays. Generations of families have made it an annual tradition to visit this 160-acre entertainment complex, 35 miles from Knoxville, which has transformed, over three decades, into a Christmas attraction to rival Radio City’s Rockettes — with fewer kicklines, but far more fingerpicking.“Christmas in the Smokies,” its signature show, has been running since 1990, with a live orchestra and Appalachian storytelling, a flatfoot dancer and a fiddler. The park serves as the setting for “Dolly Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas,” the star’s latest NBC special, now streaming on Peacock, which gives a glimpse of several Dollywood musicians, like Addie Levy, a 20-year-old mandolin, guitar, fiddle and upright bass player.“There is something for everybody during all the four seasons,” Dolly Parton said in a video interview in September, already offset by candy-pink pines that matched her manicure. “And of course, Christmas is the highlight of it all.”“We make almost as much money now, from Thanksgiving to the first of the year, as we do the whole rest of the year,” she added (a bit of showbiz hyperbole, but the park does have some of its busiest days in that period).Parton, 76, has been a cultural force for decades, an empire-builder whose business ventures include baked goods and dog T-shirts (Doggywood, y’all!), and a rare social unifier whose philanthropic reach has markedly increased. Last month, Jeff Bezos gave her $100 million to add to her already robust charitable giving; among other endeavors, she founded the Imagination Library, which distributes free books to children. Early this year, Dollywood announced a new program in which the 4,000 employees across all its attractions — including part-time and seasonal workers; even a temporary Santa — could have 100 percent of their college tuition paid for by the company. They are eligible on their first day of work.While Dollywood is open most of the year, “Christmas is the highlight of it all,” Dolly Parton said.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesEach morning the national anthem plays just before Dollywood visitors enter.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesDollywood, which was founded in 1986, when Parton went into business with Herschend Family Entertainment to rebrand and then expand their existing amusement park, is the largest employer in its rural county. “We want people to have opportunities,” said Parton, whose title at the park is dreamer in chief. “The employees to feel proud to be working there. You don’t want them to feel like they’re just there to serve you. You also, in turn, want to be able to do some things to help make their lives better, and to serve them.”That’s in part why she wanted to do her Christmas special there — “to just show off who we are and what we have there at the park,” she said.“They’re good-looking people!” she added with a hoot.A few days spent there last month, darting among the topiaries of butterflies (Parton’s signature creature), revealed a crosscurrent of her fan base: retirees looking for a homey glimpse of yesteryear; church groups who appreciate the park’s roots in Christian culture; overstretched families looking for a more affordable theme park adventure; mother-daughter bonding outings, gay couples and girlfriend crews with spangly earrings and coordinating T-shirts. Add in reindeer antlers and kids in tinsel and pajamas, and it’s the holidays.Watching the string band, Linda Lay, 60, who runs a family farm business and sings bluegrass with her husband David Lay, leaped off her feet in a jig. “When the music’s good, I just get up and dance,” she said. “To us, there’s two kinds of music,” added David, 64, a mustachioed, overall-ed fourth-generation farmer, who harmonizes and plays guitar. “It’s either good, or it’s bad.”Dollywood’s business was long built on repeat visitors — season-pass holders that came from the region, screaming through the rides in the summer (there is also an adjacent water park), pumpkin-spotting at the harvest festival in the fall. But since the pandemic, Dollywood’s leaders found an uptick, sometimes even a majority, of single-ticket buyers in their nearly 3 million annual attendees. Now on pace for a record-breaking season, they have been working to sell the park to people like Carrie Shea, 23, from Satellite Beach, Fla., who was decked out in full Dolly regalia — fringed white boots, a pink-rimmed cowgirl hat — from the apparel shop Dolly’s Closet (tagline: “her style, your size”).Children gather for story time at DreamMore, a resort hotel affiliated with Dollywood.Stacy Kranitz for The New York Times“I’ve loved Dolly since I was a little girl,” said Shea, who works in retail. “Just being around everyone else who loves Dolly — Dolly has such a great moral code, she’s such a woman of empowerment. There’s just pure love walking through.”While you can get a flick of glitz by stepping onto her old tour bus, don’t expect over-the-top camp; there are no rhinestone-encrusted Dolly statues here. The star’s aura is represented more subtly, with a working chapel named for the doctor who delivered her, say, or a small plaque commemorating her uncle Bill’s work as a conservator of chestnut trees.Her music and influences, though, are easy to find. Dollywood entertainers are devoted practitioners of bluegrass, folk and other Americana musical styles not often heard in theme parks. Even if you don’t seek them out, you encounter them at the park, in outdoor trios and roaming banjo players like Parker Collins, a 15-year-old with a deep Southern twang and a virtuosic pluck.Come Christmas time, he does his own speeding rendition of “Jingle Bells,” dueling banjo-style. “Usually I get excited, and I start playing fast,” he explained.Betty Disney cradles her baby, Brooklyn, while sitting next to her daughter Blake in front of a nativity display at Dollywood.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesAs an institution, Dollywood stands alone in showcasing these heritage mountain sounds to vast audiences, said Roy Andrade, director of old-time music and a professor at East Tennessee State University, which operates the first Appalachian studies program in the country. “In providing a venue and supporting and encouraging young budding musicians, they are contributing to the health and survival of this music,” he said.Some of his students gig at Dollywood. “Our students like playing there because it pays well,” he said, “and it’s a bit grueling — you’re playing all day. You really get to work on your chops. After two or three hours of playing, you’re warmed up, anything can happen — it’s a nice creative space.”The community it offers, in and around artists, is also vital. “This music has always been learned knee to knee,” he said. “That’s the No. 1 way it’s transferred between people.”Addie Levy, the young musician, felt it, when she visited Dollywood as a child. “I used to tell my parents I would sell Dippin’ Dots if I could work here,” she said. She started performing there at age 12 in a bluegrass duo; now she plays at Dollywood and its affiliated resort hotel, DreamMore. Her debut solo album is out next year, including songs she wrote in the break room at the hotel, where a corridor is lined with images of Parton’s 50-plus studio albums.“I’ll walk through her album hallway and think wow, maybe one day I’ll have three of these,” Levy said. “You just get inspired when you see her looking over you. You’re like, look Dolly, I’m writing this song — I think you’d like it.”Members of the Jolly family at DreamMore.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesBirthday guests are given a special button to wear during their visit.Stacy Kranitz for The New York Times‘If someone doesn’t have a smile, give them yours’Dollywood emphasizes what’s called “streetmosphere,” especially the one-on-one interactions guests have as they meander through areas like Rivertown Junction, with a replica of the log cabin Parton grew up in, and Craftsman’s Valley, where they can buy a hand-tooled belt from a magnificently bearded artisan, or blow their own glass ornaments. Disney’s streetmosphere is more about a hug from a branded character, often hidden in a plush suit. But Dollywood prides itself on making its employees accessible to visitors — conversationally, temperamentally — whether they are costumed singers and dancers, or cashiers slinging cinnamon bread. (I was persuaded to buy a loaf and a roll, plus supplementary icing.)Those points of connection, whether with a person or a song, are what keep visitors coming back. “We call them ‘moments of truth,’” said Roger White, a longtime entertainment manager.Parton’s magic is that — beneath the wigs and plastic surgery, and the unshakable boob-joke persona she has honed over more than a half-century in show business — she still exudes authenticity. An average person might go mildly batty listening to piped-in Christmas tunes for 10 hours a day, five days a week, for two months, but among the theme park staff are genuine believers. “I put up 30 Christmas trees at my house,” said Chance Smith, a performer turned entertainment manager.Dollywood prides itself on making its employees accessible to visitors. Those points of connection, whether with a person or a song, are what keep visitors coming back.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesHe’s outshone by Parton herself, whose home in suburban Nashville features a Christmas tree in nearly every corner, according to Steve Summers, her longtime creative director. “It’s like a theme park inside,” he said, with colors and ornaments to match each room’s décor. (Think parakeets and vintage cars; the kitchen tree is hot pink.)Summers is a graduate of Dollywood, too: a tall Ken doll of man, he started there as a singer and dancer, duetting with Parton regularly, before she plucked him out to oversee her costumes (300 looks a year) and aesthetics. “If you do know Dolly, you know that behind the scenes, she is a force. And I appreciated that,” he said in an interview in Parton’s Nashville production offices, where the lyrics for her hit “9 to 5,” handwritten in her neat cursive on a yellow legal pad, hang framed by the door.“He’s just been the best thing that ever happened to me,” Parton said.The Dollywood Express train, which is coal-powered, travels through the park.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesOver the years, Dollywood acts have gone on to “American Idol” and Broadway. The country star Carly Pearce debuted there as a teenager. But some artists are content to stay at the park.Take the Chicken Lady.In rainbow glasses and a headset mic, some rubber poultry — “my emotional support chicken” — in her apron pocket, Miss Lillian, as her character is formally known, is a local favorite. With a sprig of holly in her hat, she improvises songs on her ukulele. (“What’s your name?” she asked a tween who sought her out one rainy day. “Grace? Oh, we have Grace in this place!”)“I’ve been here almost 20 years,” said the Chicken Lady, whose civilian name is Connie Freeman Prince. “I’ve seen a lot of children grow up.”“I’m in a point in my life when I say, ‘Dear God, just put me where I can be a light,’” Connie Freeman Prince, also known as the Chicken Lady, said.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesMariam Ali, a game attendant at Dollywood.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesCaleb Brown, one of the park’s performers, won a Brass Ring award in 2021.Stacy Kranitz for The New York Times“If you do a show 200 times in two months, every now and then you might trip on your own mouse tail,” Kelsey Lane Dies said. “You just have to let it go, because you have to get back onstage so quickly.”Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesLike many Dollywood performers, Freeman Prince has serious credentials — a B.F.A. in theater; TV, movie and voice-over roles. She does a mean Judy Garland impression and once worked as a Dolly impersonator. She met her husband, a sound designer, and got engaged “on park,” as employees call the grounds. “A lot of people get engaged here,” she said. “A lot of people have different parts of their lives shared here. And I’m in a point in my life when I say, ‘Dear God, just put me where I can be a light.’”In more than a dozen interviews at the park, there was one mantra from the boss that I heard repeated over and over: “Dolly always says, ‘If someone doesn’t have a smile, give them yours.’”“The littlest thing you do can change someone’s day,” said Nathan Forshey, a performer for 17 years, whose latest role is the town crier. “What you do matters. That’s what this place has taught me.”The Dollywood Emporium sells, among other things, Parton’s perfume.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesScenes from the all-you-can-eat dinner at Aunt Granny’s Restaurant inside Dollywood.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesA replica of Dolly Parton’s childhood home is furnished with some of her family’s heirlooms.Stacy Kranitz for The New York Times‘If she’s still asleep at 3 a.m., it’s a miracle’For all its good-heartedness, Dollywood can be notably lacking in diversity, especially onstage.When Caleb Brown started in 2018, he noticed he was one of only two performers of color, among dozens of cast members. Though he felt supported himself, it was something he brought up immediately, first with the other actor — who said “that it was also a concern for him” — and then with management, he said, in an effort to dispel any sense that Dollywood’s appeal was limited to white country fans.“I think there’s a lot of people like me who would benefit from this place so much,” Brown, 27, said. In 2021 he won a Brass Ring award — the Oscars of the international attractions industry — for best performer.Some visitors felt alienated by the park’s traditionalist choices: the holiday shows center on straight family stories, with mostly white actors. “When people celebrate Christmas, they can celebrate in different ways, and families can look very different,” said Zaki Baker, a mother who came often with her young children. “It seems like they have a narrow perspective.”Park leadership said they make tweaks every season, including to popular shows; they recently added a new song to “Christmas in the Smokies.” In a statement, Tim Berry, Dollywood’s vice president of human resources, said the company believes that “a diverse work force makes us more creative, flexible, productive and competitive,” adding that “our diversity encompasses differences in ethnicity, gender, language, age, religion, socioeconomic status, physical and mental ability, thinking styles, experience and education.”For years, Parton’s brand has been about inclusivity and acceptance; lately she has come out more forcefully in support of the gay community and movements like Black Lives Matter; in 2018, she changed a separate attraction known as the “Dixie Stampede” to the Dolly Parton Stampede.To stans like Shea, the Florida visitor, every section of the park seemed imbued with Parton’s spirit, including an aviary showcase for birds of prey, created by the American Eagle Foundation. (“I was like, oh my God, Dolly cares about the eagles!”) But behind the scenes, John Owens Dietrich, a former choreographer and director for the Rockettes, who teaches at N.Y.U., has also had an outsize influence in creating movement and songs for the park, and coaching performers through a grueling schedule of as many as six shows a day.Generations of families have made it a tradition to visit this 160-acre entertainment complex.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesDreamMore workers keep the guests entertained.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesIt was intimidating at first. “If you do a show 200 times in two months, every now and then you might trip on your own mouse tail,” said Kelsey Lane Dies, who plays a mischievous rodent in a child-oriented Christmas production. “You just have to let it go, because you have to get back onstage so quickly.”Dies, 28, who trained at a theater conservatory in New York, was one of the first employees to take advantage of the college tuition program. She’s studying organizational leadership, with an eye toward eventually moving off the stage. “Had this program not existed, I very likely would never have gone back to college, unless I won the lottery,” she said.The industriousness and quality control at the park comes from Parton herself. She’s sat in on auditions; she wrote the material for the autobiographical shows her family members long performed; she’s there on opening day every year, and at the introduction of new rides (though she doesn’t partake herself — she gets motion sickness). The park is now building another resort: she’s in the meetings to select the drapery.“You can’t outwork Dolly Parton,” Summers said. “Nobody can. If she’s still asleep at 3 a.m., it’s a miracle.”Perhaps as a counterpoint to all the evident busyness — and to the sensory onslaught of most theme parks — Dollywood invites visitors to pause and listen: to the strum of an instrument, and a sweet Christmas bell. To the squawk in the bird sanctuary and the burbling creek by the old mill. To each other, and to their surroundings.“That’s why I love this place,” Heidi Lou Parton said. “There are secret places you can go to, and you can hear the mountains.”Dolly’s voice lingers, too. A cursive-print sign at the park’s exit bears her all-embracing message: “I will always love you.”Some of the millions of Christmas lights around Dollywood this time of year.Stacy Kranitz for The New York Times More