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      Strauss’s ‘Salome’ Gets a New Staging at the Metropolitan Opera

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      In his company debut, the director Claus Guth takes a psychological approach, surrounding the title character with six versions of her younger self.The first sound in the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of “Salome” isn’t the wriggle of clarinet that begins Strauss’s score. It’s the tinkle of a music box, while a little girl plays with a doll at the lip of the stage. Projected on the curtain behind her is a giant image of herself, slowly twirling.She suddenly gets angry at the toy and begins beating it against the ground. Even before the orchestra squirms in, Claus Guth’s grimly effective staging has made clear its preoccupations: childhood, dancing, violence.Guth, one of Europe’s busiest directors and making his Met debut with this production, is also fascinated by multiple versions of the self. Starring the soprano Elza van den Heever — simultaneously innocent and hardened, sounding silvery yet secure — this “Salome,” which opened on Tuesday, gives its title character not one youthful double, but six.The group of Salomes, progressing in age from perhaps a kindergartner to the 16-year-old played by van den Heever, is dressed in matching dark frocks, giving hints of “The Shining” and Diane Arbus photographs.Guth, placing the action in a dour black mansion around the turn of the 20th century, has shifted from ancient to modern times Strauss’s 100-minute, one-act adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s scandalous play. “Salome” depicts, in decadent music inspired by the flowery language of the Symbolists, the biblical princess who was drawn to and rejected by John the Baptist and who demanded that he be decapitated by her depraved stepfather, King Herod.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What Comes After Trauma and a TikTok Hit? Gigi Perez Is Finding Out.

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      The artist, 25, struck platinum with “Sailor Song.” Her debut album is a tribute to her lost sister, and an attempt to make sense of a few rudderless years.Gigi Perez walked into a Brooklyn restaurant last week with a toothpick wedged in her mouth, stood up after dinner and slid in another one. She had glanced at a clear box of them sitting on the table periodically, like she was seeking comfort or reinforcement. But for two hours, she mostly kept her gaze fixed to the side, avoiding eye contact while she spoke — as she often finds herself doing — about death.“Getting older, watching the people in your family get older — I feel like I’m on a conveyor belt that’s going to this inevitable end,” she said.At 25, Perez speaks with a weariness of someone at least twice her age. She was at one of her favorite Japanese spots in Williamsburg, not too far from where she used to live; she was days away from releasing her debut album and 10 hours from a brutally early wake-up call for “The Today Show.”Like many young musicians, Perez is figuring out what comes next after virality. Her lilting, guitar-powered anthems have blazed through TikTok, amassing millions of streams and a fervent fan base. “Sailor Song,” a ballad about lusting after a girl who looks like Anne Hathaway (yes, it was based on a real woman), went platinum and has been planted on Spotify’s most-streamed songs in the United States for months; it became a No. 1 single in the United Kingdom last fall. But Perez’s career hasn’t been built on celebration. She is carving a catalog out of grief.“When you’re a kid, music is verbalizing things you don’t know how to say — you don’t have the vocabulary to understand. You’re discovering how you feel in real time,” Perez said. OK McCausland for The New York TimesOne of her first songs to garner attention on SoundCloud, “Sometimes (Backwood),” took off six months after her older sister, Celene, died suddenly in 2020. Perez’s LP, “At the Beach, in Every Life,” released less than a week ago, is largely a tribute to her. It is also an attempt to shape and sharpen the last, often rudderless years of her own life.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Andy Bey, Jazz Singer Renowned for His Vocal Range, Dies at 85

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      An admirer of Nat King Cole, he began as a child performer and as part of a family trio before emerging as a master of the American Songbook.Andy Bey, a jazz singer, pianist and composer whose silky, rich bass-baritone and four-octave vocal range placed him among the greatest interpreters of the American Songbook since Nat King Cole, his role model, died on Saturday in Englewood, N.J. He was 85.His nephew, Darius de Haas, confirmed the death, at a retirement home.Mr. Bey’s life in jazz spanned over 60 years, from his early days as a child prodigy singing in Newark and at the Apollo Theater in Manhattan, to a late-career run of albums and lengthy tours that kept him active well into his eighth decade.The sheer reach of his voice, and his expert control over it, could astound audiences. Not only could he climb from a deep baritone to a crisp tenor, but he could also do it while jumping ahead of the beat, or slowing to a crawl behind it, giving even well-worn songs his personal stamp.At a typical show, he might start out singing and playing piano, alongside a bass and drums, then switch between them, sometimes singing without piano, sometimes playing the piano alone.Mr. Bey performed as part of the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem in August 2015. He was rediscovered late in his career. Jack Vartoogian/Getty ImagesEven long into his 70s, Mr. Bey had a commanding, compelling voice, projecting from his baby face beneath his signature porkpie hat, a look that made him seem younger than his years.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Beyoncé Cowboy Carter Tour Review; The Star Remixes American History, and Her Own

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      The last time Beyoncé performed “Daddy Lessons,” the stomping, biting number from her 2016 album, “Lemonade,” was at that year’s C.M.A. Awards, in a blistering rendition alongside the Dixie Chicks (now the Chicks).Not everyone in country music embraced Beyoncé’s experimentation. “I did not feel welcomed,” she wrote in album notes leading up to the release last year of “Cowboy Carter,” her eighth solo album, an exploration of the many tendrils of American roots music and their connections to Black music of all stripes and generations.So it was meaningful, and pointed, that at the opening night of the Cowboy Carter Tour at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., on Monday, Beyoncé played “Daddy Lessons” for the first time since that rejection. It came right after she sang her renovated version of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” — approved by the country royal herself — while soaring over the rapturous crowd in a flying horseshoe.At almost three hours long, her seventh solo headlining concert tour was a characteristic Beyoncé epic.The New York TimesBeyoncé’s Cowboy Carter show featured the debut of many of the album’s songs, but also brought back tracks from across her catalog.The New York TimesFull-circle moments don’t just happen — they are the products of intention and diligence and allergy to loose threads. Throughout this roisterous and clever show, there were suggestions that loop-closing has been very much on Beyoncé’s mind, along with culmination.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      6 (Genre-Smashing) New Songs You Should Hear Now

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      Hit play on Sleep Token, Cortisa Star, Bon Iver and more.Sleep TokenAndy FordDear listeners,This is Joe Coscarelli, a music reporter at The New York Times and Lindsay’s colleague on the Culture desk, filling in for this Amplifier. Luckily, I’ve had playlists on my mind recently, because I had the pleasure of hosting a workshop called “How to Make the Perfect Playlist” at The Times’s annual Take Our Kids to Work Day celebration last week.As a group, we talked about the importance of mood, flow, genre and discovery when it comes to making a good mix, but I (mostly!) followed the kids’ lead when it came to actually choosing what was on our perfect, themed playlists. (You can check out the results of our two sessions here and here; they’re pleasantly deranged.) The truth is, despite having spent a decade in this music-intensive job and the previous decade as an obsessive fan and collector, I’m not super into making a bunch of playlists to suit my every vibe or situational need.Instead, I tend to just keep a quarterly depository of all the songs I find myself returning to throughout a given season, so I can easily time-travel back to any chunk of my recent life and have the relevant and transporting — if disjointed — soundtrack all in one place.Now that the weather is finally turning for good in New York (… right?), I have a new one going for spring that trends loosely toward a spirit of renewal and release. Here are some new songs that are original, addictive and hopeful enough to fit.xoxo,JoeListen along while you read.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Boston Pops’ Keith Lockhart Has the Ear of the Red Sox and Classical Fans

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      It’s hard to fathom what the Boston Pops gets itself into with its annual Holiday Pops marathon, which takes up most of December at Symphony Hall. Last year, this orchestra played essentially the same program, with a few tweaks for family shows, 42 times in a bit less than three weeks. Santa Claus attended every concert.Boston audiences have come to expect that certain items will appear on the bill: Leroy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride,” for example, and a dramatic reading of Clement Clarke Moore’s “A Visit From St. Nicholas.” The best of them, at least for wit, is David Chase’s monstrously inventive arrangement of “The 12 Days of Christmas,” which quotes Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, “Oklahoma!” and “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Sung with gusto, usually by the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, it surprises every time you hear it.Lockhart conducts nearly all the beloved Holiday Pops concerts throughout December.Jillian Freyer for The New York TimesThen again, the whole Holiday Pops enterprise is something of a surprise. In the performances last December, the musicians of the Pops — essentially the Boston Symphony Orchestra without most of its principals — never seemed to look bored, and some had enough ho, ho, ho in them to wear a seasonal hat or even dance onstage. Musical standards remained admirably high.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Resurrection of Rilo Kiley

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      When the Rilo Kiley singer and guitarist Blake Sennett wrote them 25 years ago, he concurred with the lyrics of “Pictures of Success,” a song about longing to arrive at a destination despite, or because of, the inability to fully imagine it.“I’m ready to go / Ready to go / Ready to go,” he howls on the track’s refrain, harmonizing with the song’s co-writer and the band’s lead singer, Jenny Lewis, over a bed of chiming guitars.But the words hit him differently now.“I’m not as ready to go as I was then,” joked Sennet, 51, on a recent video call from Los Angeles with his bandmates: Lewis, 49; the drummer Jason Boesel, 47; and the bassist Pierre “Duke” de Reeder, 52.“You already went,” Boesel quipped.“We should license that song to, like, Cialis, or something,” Lewis suggested. “Ready to go!”Life comes at you fast. Since the release of the first Rilo Kiley EP in 1999, the band has survived affiliation with Hollywood, straddled mid-aughts indie exuberance with its third album, “More Adventurous” (2004), graduated to mainstream popularity with a follow-up, “Under the Blacklight” (2007), split up under tense circumstances and — after the marriages, children and self-reflection of early middle-age — found its way back together again.Rilo Kiley, from left: Pierre “Duke” de Reeder (lying down), Jenny Lewis, Blake Sennett (seated) and Jason Boesel (standing in foreground).Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Blondshell Became an Alt-Rock Supernova

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      With songs about addiction and sobriety, praise kink, friend breakups, familial strife, body dysmorphia and, as she put it, “choosing to be in relationships with bad dudes,” Sabrina Teitelbaum has quickly earned a reputation for putting it all out there. But for a while, the singer and songwriter who records as Blondshell kept her career ambitions under wraps.A born-and-raised New Yorker, Teitelbaum, 28, spent her high school years stomping around downtown Manhattan, singing original songs at open mic nights under a slew of aliases. Her musical life was “kind of private,” she said, waxing nostalgic during a walk along the High Line on a brisk but sunny March afternoon. “I didn’t really talk to people in my family about it. I didn’t talk to my friends about it.”In town from her current home in Los Angeles, and braced for the elements in a zipped black anorak and Saint Laurent shades, Teitelbaum flew under the radar amid throngs of tourists in Chelsea. Her era of performing anonymously, however, at venues like Pianos and the erstwhile incubator Sidewalk Cafe, is over.In 2022, her first single as Blondshell generated buzz that hearkened back to an earlier, blog-fueled era of indie-rock, and her subsequent self-titled debut earned fans and spots on many critics’ 2023 year-end lists for its grungy rock and frank, self-implicating lyricism. Now, on the cusp of releasing her second album, “If You Asked for a Picture,” on Friday, Teitelbaum is working out just how much more of herself to reveal to her growing audience.“If You Asked for a Picture,” out May 2, builds on the themes Teitelbaum explored on her self-titled debut.Ariel Fisher for The New York Times“All the things I was saying in the songs were things that I didn’t feel comfortable saying to people in conversation,” she said. “And I think that’s kind of still the case.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More