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      Bill Fries, Singer Known for 1970s Trucking Ballad ‘Convoy,’ Dies at 93

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      Mr. Fries, who performed under the stage name C.W. McCall, was an ad executive before he scored a hit with “Convoy,” a CB radio-inspired ode to renegade truckers.Bill Fries, the deep-voiced country singer known as C.W. McCall, who turned an ad campaign for an Iowa bread company into the outlaw trucker anthem, “Convoy,” which reached No. 1 on the charts in 1976 and inspired a Sam Peckinpah movie, died on Friday at his home in Ouray, Colo. He was 93.His death was confirmed by his son, Bill Fries III, who said his father had been in hospice care for about six months.Mr. Fries was working as an ad executive at Bozell & Jacobs in Omaha in the 1970s, when he helped to create a series of television commercials for Metz Baking Company about a trucker named C.W. McCall hauling Old Home bread in an eighteen-wheeler and a gum-snapping waitress named Mavis at the Old Home Filler-Up an’ Keep On A-Truckin’ Cafe.The ads — including one that ended with the tagline “Old Home is good buns” — became wildly popular and helped pump up Old Home bread sales as they told the story of a diesel-scented romance between Mavis and C.W., who spoke in a formidable twang voiced by Mr. Fries.“It was just amazing,” Mr. Fries once told Bozell. “Fan clubs were springing up and people were calling into TV and radio stations wanting to know when the spots were going to air.”In 1974, the ads were recognized by the Clio Awards as the nation’s best overall television advertising campaign.“When I accepted the award, I could see the shock and horror on the faces of all those New York advertising executives,” Mr. Fries told The Omaha World-Herald in 2001. “I remember saying, ‘I’ll bet y’all never thought something this good could come out of Omaha.’”Mr. Fries helped to spin the ads into a promotional record for Metz Baking Company, called “Old Home Filler-Up an’ Keep On A-Truckin’ Cafe,” which sold about 30,000 copies, according to Bozell. Before long, MGM Records in Nashville was calling.With a record deal from MGM, Mr. Fries spawned a cultural phenomenon with “Convoy,” an ode to renegade truckers driving across the country, written with Chip Davis, who had also written the music for the Old Home bread ads and who went on to found the group Mannheim Steamroller, known for its Christmas music.Crackling with CB radio lingo, the song tells the story of the truckers Rubber Duck and Pig Pen who are “puttin’ the hammer down” as they thumb their noses at speed limits, industry rules and law enforcement officers — “bears” and “smokies” in CB parlance. Along the way, they end up leading 1,000 trucks and “11 longhaired friends of Jesus in a chartreuse microbus.”Originally recorded merely as an album filler, “Convoy” tapped into the surging popularity of trucker culture and CB radio, which truckers used to communicate during long, lonely hours on the open road. It was part of a boom in trucking-themed country songs like “Roll On Big Mama” by Joe Stampley and “Willin’” by Little Feat.“Convoy” spent six weeks at the top of the country charts and crossed into the top of the pop charts for a week, according to The World-Herald. More than 20 million copies of the single have been sold, according to Bozell. In 1978, Mr. Peckinpah turned the song into a movie, “Convoy,” starring Kris Kristofferson as Rubber Duck.“It went farther than I would have ever dreamed,” Mr. Fries told The World-Herald. “I’ve got a whole scrapbook full of articles people have written through the years about ‘Convoy’ and the ‘Old Home Filler-Up an’ Keep On A-Truckin’ Cafe.’”Billie Dale Fries was born on Nov. 15, 1928, in Audubon, Iowa, and later changed his name to William Dale Fries Jr. His father, Billie Fries, was a supervisor at a farm-equipment plant that manufactured hog pens. His mother, Margaret Fries, was a homemaker.After graduating from high school, Mr. Fries attended the University of Iowa for a year and then came back to Audubon and started a sign-painting business.In the late 1940s, he went to work for the NBC affiliate in Omaha as an art director, which led him into advertising and a job at Bozell & Jacobs.In addition to his son, Bill Fries III, he is survived by his wife of 70 years, Rena Fries, two other children, Mark Fries and Nancy Fries, four grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and a great-great-grandson.Mr. Fries said he got the idea for “Convoy” while sitting in his Jeep listening to CB radio chatter.“It sounds like a war going on out there,” he told Mr. Davis. “It might be an idea for the album.”Mr. Fries, who ultimately released nine albums, according to his son, retired to Ouray, a city about 300 miles southwest of Denver, in 1981. He was elected mayor in 1986 and served until 1992, his son said.Even after his country music career was over, Mr. Fries said the runaway success of “Convoy” remained an enduring source of pride.“It’s one of those things that can only happen in America,” he told The World-Herald. “CBs have all faded into the woodwork. Most young people won’t even know about CBs or truck convoys, but at the time it was the thing. That was pretty special.”Jack Begg More

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      Grammys 2022: How to Watch, Time and Streaming

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      A guide to everything you need to know for the 64th annual awards on Sunday night.It’s been a tumultuous few months for the Grammy Awards.First, at a meeting just 24 hours before the nominees were announced in November, the Recording Academy decided to expand the big four categories — album, record and song of the year, and best new artist — from eight to 10 slots, netting nominations for Taylor Swift and Kanye West. A few days later, Drake, without offering an explanation, dropped out of the two rap categories in which he was nominated.In mid-January, amid an uptick in coronavirus cases caused by the Omicron variant, the 64th annual Grammy Awards, originally scheduled for Jan. 31, were postponed and then moved to Las Vegas for the first time.Last month, Kanye West, who is up for five awards, was told he is no longer welcome to perform at the ceremony following troubling behavior on social media. Then, two of the seven members of the K-pop group BTS, which is up for best pop duo/group performance for the second straight year, tested positive for the coronavirus, leaving their performance status in limbo. And this week, Foo Fighters, who are up for three awards this year, also bowed out after their 50-year-old drummer, Taylor Hawkins, died on tour on March 25.While producers were juggling lineup changes, Covid protocols and the usual stresses of preparing three and a half hours of live network television, something else happened at the Oscars on Sunday night that likely got their attention.Obstacles aside, Sunday’s ceremony at the MGM Grand Garden Arena is a return to a large-scale production with a big audience following last year’s bare-bones, intimate, largely outdoor affair. The contenders include Tony Bennett, 95, who is nominated for his collaboration with Lady Gaga on the Cole Porter tribute album “Love for Sale,” and Olivia Rodrigo, 19, who is up for all four of the biggest trophies; Jon Batiste, perhaps best known as the bandleader for “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” leads all nominees with 11 nods.A Guide to the 2022 Grammy AwardsThe ceremony, originally scheduled for Jan. 31, was postponed for a second year in a row due to Covid and is now scheduled for April 3.Jon Batiste Leads the Way: The jazz pianist earned the most nominations with 11, including album and record of the year. Here’s his reaction.Performers: Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, BTS and Lil Nas X are among the first performers announced for the April 3 show, which will be available on CBS and Paramount+.Kanye West: The singer, who is nominated for five awards, was told he will not be allowed to perform during the ceremony due to his erratic public behavior. A Surprise Appearance: The Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, who suffered an aneurysm in 2015 and has spoken in public infrequently since, will present an award at the ceremony.Here’s how to watch — and what to expect at — Sunday’s ceremony.What time do the festivities start?The ceremony, which will air live on CBS and the streaming service Paramount+, will begin at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific. You can also watch on CBS.com or through the CBS app if you have a cable subscription.Cord cutters can watch the show on any live TV streaming service that offers CBS, including FuboTV, Hulu + Live TV, Paramount+, YouTube TV and DirecTV Stream, many of which are offering free trials. It will also be available on demand on Paramount+.If you want to pregame, you can check out the premiere ceremony, when about 76 of the 86 awards are handed out. That begins at 3:30 Eastern, 12:30 Pacific and will be available to watch on grammy.com and the Recording Academy’s YouTube channel. LeVar Burton will host, and Allison Russell, Jimmie Allen, Ledisi and Mon Laferte will perform.Is there a red carpet?Yes. E! will have red carpet coverage beginning at 4 p.m., and “Live From E!: Grammys” starts at 6 p.m. Arrivals will be streamed at grammy.com beginning at 6:30 p.m.Who will be hosting?Trevor Noah, of “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central, is back for a second year.How is the competition shaping up?Batiste leads the pack with 11 nominations, covering American roots music, classical, jazz and R&B. He’s followed by Doja Cat, H.E.R. and Justin Bieber, all with eight nods. Billie Eilish (“Happier Than Ever”) and Rodrigo (“Sour”) earned seven nominations apiece, including for record, album and song of the year. (Rodrigo is also up for best new artist.)Joining Rodrigo in the best new artist category are the Kid Laroi, whose ubiquitous pop radio single “Stay” features Bieber; Saweetie (“Best Friend” featuring Doja Cat); and Finneas, Eilish’s producer brother. (Learn about all the best new artist nominees here.)Can we talk about Bruno?We regret to inform you that once again, we cannot. The Grammys, which are voted on by more than 11,000 members of the Recording Academy, recognize music released from Sept. 1, 2020, to Sept. 30, 2021, meaning more recent smashes like Adele’s “30” or Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” will have to wait until next year.Who’s going to perform?The lineup includes J Balvin with Maria Becerra, Batiste, Brothers Osborne, Brandi Carlile, Eilish, Lady Gaga, H.E.R., John Legend, Lil Nas X with Jack Harlow, Rodrigo, Silk Sonic, Chris Stapleton and Carrie Underwood. As of now, whether BTS will take the stage is unclear. While Foo Fighters are no longer performing, producers have said they’re working on a way to honor Hawkins during the ceremony. Something else to look forward to, especially if you’re a musical theater fan: a tribute to the composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, who died in November at 91, featuring Cynthia Erivo, Leslie Odom Jr., Ben Platt and Rachel Zegler.Who will be presenting?Joni Mitchell — who was honored at the MusiCares Person of the Year tribute show, an annual pre-Grammys event, Friday night in Las Vegas — is making a rare public appearance on the Grammys stage. Other presenters include Dua Lipa, Megan Thee Stallion, Questlove, Bonnie Raitt, Keith Urban, Kelsea Ballerini, Lenny Kravitz, Billy Porter, Avril Lavigne and Ludacris, as well as Jared Leto and Michaela Jaé Rodriguez and the actor Anthony Mackie.What else is new this year?The expansion to 10 nominees in the big four categories isn’t the only change. The Grammys dropped nominating committees — expert panels that determined the ballot in many categories — after complaints from prominent artists, including the Weeknd, that they were unfair. The Grammys also removed the requirement for album of the year that writers play a role in at least a third of an LP to be recognized as contributors. Now, anyone who contributed to a single album, whether as a featured artist, engineer, producer or songwriter, is eligible — so if Bieber’s “Justice” wins, for instance, dozens of people will earn Grammys. There are also two new categories being awarded this year: best global music performance and best música urbana album.Who could make history?Rodrigo could become just the third artist, after Christopher Cross and Billie Eilish, to win all of the top four awards at a single ceremony. Taylor Swift could become the first artist to win album of the year four times, and BTS could become the first K-pop group to win a Grammy. Eilish, who won an Oscar with her brother, Finneas, for “No Time to Die” last week, could become the first person to win record of the year three times in a row.Who do we think will win?Our critics and pop music editor debated the 10 nominees up for record of the year … and didn’t come to much consensus. Grammys are famously hard to predict.Remind me again, what’s the difference between the record and song of the year categories?Record of the year, essentially the equivalent of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ best picture award and regarded as the top prize, recognizes the recording of a single track, focusing on both the artist’s performance and the efforts of audio engineers, mixers and producers. Song of the year also recognizes a single track, but it’s awarded solely for writing. (Think of it as the equivalent of the academy’s screenplay award.) More

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      Review: Two Artists Arrive at the Philharmonic, Loudly

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      The conductor Anna Rakitina made her New York Philharmonic debut, while the pianist Haochen Zhang had his first subscription series appearance.When the New York Philharmonic performed Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 on Thursday, barely a month had passed since that piece was heard nearby at Carnegie Hall.The earlier concert, on Feb. 25, happened in the raw, confused early hours of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Yannick Nézet-Séguin had jumped in at the last minute to lead the Vienna Philharmonic, joined by the pianist Seong-Jin Cho. The reason for the switch? The originally scheduled artists, the conductor Valery Gergiev and the pianist Denis Matsuev, had been dropped over their ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.As the war continued, the Russian conductor Tugan Sokhiev resigned from his posts at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and the Orchestre National du Capitole in Toulouse, France, because of pressure to denounce the invasion. Then, in a mutual decision with the Philharmonic, he withdrew from this week’s program, featuring the Rachmaninoff concerto. (He will be back next spring to lead Shostakovich’s “Leningrad” Symphony.)For his replacement, the Philharmonic followed a similar course as the Metropolitan Opera. That company replaced the Russian diva Anna Netrebko — once its reigning prima donna, now persona non grata despite a recent about-face in her affiliation with Putin — with the Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska for a revival of Puccini’s “Turandot.” And the Philharmonic turned on Thursday to Anna Rakitina, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s assistant conductor, who was born in Moscow to Russian and Ukrainian parents.With more lead time than last month at Carnegie, Thursday’s performance of the Rachmaninoff — at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center — at least had the luxury of proper rehearsal. And the focus was less on the war than what the evening meant for its artists: Rakitina’s Philharmonic debut and the pianist Haochen Zhang’s first subscription series concert, after his brief appearance at a Lunar New Year gala in early 2020.Their arrivals were announced loudly, even a bit indelicately: The concerto had clarity and crowd-pleasing excitement, but also lapses in sensitivity and shape.That mix of strengths and weaknesses was not only in the Rachmaninoff, but also in the work that preceded it, Lili Boulanger’s 1918 “D’un Matin de Printemps,” an agile, five-minute survey of Technicolor images that, with a martial touch here, felt less connected to Debussy than to the Russian works to come on the program.Boulanger’s piece could hardly register alongside a towering piano concerto and a yet more towering symphony, Prokofiev’s Fifth. While Rakitina’s presence at the podium was a reminder of the strides the Philharmonic has made in gender representation among its guest conductors this season, its track record with female composers remains mixed at best.Rakitina and, at the piano, Haochen Zhang, who made his first Philharmonic subscription series appearance.Chris LeeOrchestrated with the forces of maximal Romantic grandeur, the Rachmaninoff concerto tends to overpower soloists — who, denied a traditional cadenza in the first movement, must often settle for hand-cramping virtuosity that hardly anyone can hear. Not so on Thursday: After the start, with Zhang alone building tension through a slow succession of chords in crescendo, he was a constant presence.That seemed to come easily to him, as he played with unshowy coolness while revealing the full architecture of his part, all its thick pillars of chords and buttressing runs. In doing so, he occasionally lost his sense of elegance and melodic line; he may have been heard above the strings, but he couldn’t match their sweeping lyricism. Nor did he aim for that sentimentality in his encore, the third movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 12 in A flat: a heroic funeral march, here more dignified than mournful.There is a funeral march, too, in Prokofiev’s World War II-era Fifth Symphony, albeit a passing one. This work has other preoccupations. Depending on when he was asked, its composer said it was about “the triumph of the human spirit,” “the greatness of the human spirit” and “the spirit of man, his soul or something like that.” (Simon Morrison, in his book “The People’s Artist: Prokofiev’s Soviet Years,” suggests that the comments are not so much glib as, perhaps, signs of a creative outlook changing from “divine inspiration” to “human potential.”)Rakitina’s interpretation was one of ambivalent optimism, matched by her contrasting gestures at the podium: an emotively outstretched hand in one moment, a hammering beat in another. As throughout the evening, she favored fast tempos and booming dynamics, keeping the audience from truly being seduced by the arioso passages of the first movement. The Scherzo, a visit from the sound world of Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet” ballet, seemed to be on the panicked end of a chase — but a stylized one, with Anthony McGill’s clarinet solos swerving playfully, like a dancer through the streets of “West Side Story.”Prokofiev again borrowed from previous material in the third movement, which begins with a waltz written for an unrealized film adaptation of Pushkin’s “The Queen of Spades.” Coming after the breathless Scherzo, on Thursday it struggled to find its footing, but eventually did, building toward a keening climax of shrieks and downward runs. That haunted the finale, in which Rakitina brought out the orchestra’s lowest voices to darken the festive conclusion. Here, at last, was a glimpse of this conductor’s potential for undergirding surface-level thrills with deeper meaning.New York PhilharmonicThis program repeats through Saturday at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Manhattan; nyphil.org. More

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      Anna Netrebko Faces Backlash in Russia After Attempt to Distance Herself From Putin

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      The star soprano Anna Netrebko lost work in the West over her ties to the Russian president. Now, following an about-face, she has been called a traitor at home.The Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, one of opera’s biggest stars, faced backlash on Friday in her home country after she tried to distance herself from President Vladimir V. Putin amid his invasion of Ukraine.Ms. Netrebko issued a statement on Wednesday that appeared to be an attempt to revive her international career, which has crumbled recently because of her past support for Mr. Putin. In the statement, she condemned the war and said she was not allied with him.In Russia, where Ms. Netrebko has a large fan base, her words were met with criticism. She was denounced on Friday as a traitor by Vyacheslav Volodin, a senior lawmaker who has been an outspoken critic of artists who oppose the war.“You can’t call it anything other than betrayal,” Volodin wrote on his Telegram channel. “There is a voice, but no conscience. The thirst for enrichment and glory outweighed the love for the motherland.”And the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater in Siberia canceled a coming appearance by Ms. Netrebko, saying she seemed more interested in her global career than “the fate of the motherland.”“Today is not the time to sacrifice principles for more comfortable living conditions,” the house said in a statement on its website. “Now is the time to make a choice.”Ms. Netrebko could not immediately be reached for comment.Since the war started, Ms. Netrebko has faced a wave of cancellations around the world because of her ties to Mr. Putin. Her performances at the Metropolitan Opera — where she had sung for 20 years and become its prima donna — have been canceled indefinitely. Other leading opera houses, including in Munich and in Zurich, have also scrapped coming engagements.In her statement this week, Ms. Netrebko sought to distance herself from Mr. Putin, saying that they had met only a few times. “I am not a member of any political party nor am I allied with any leader of Russia,” she said, describing herself as a taxpayer in Austria, where she now resides.While she condemned the war in Ukraine, she did not explicitly criticize Mr. Putin, and did not directly address her record of support for him.It remains unclear whether she will succeed in reviving her career. The day she issued her statement, the Paris Opera announced that she would star in a production of Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino” this fall. (Alexander Neef, that house’s director, said in a statement on Wednesday that the company was evaluating the situation.) The Met responded by saying it was not prepared to change its position; Peter Gelb, its general manager, said, “If Anna demonstrates that she has truly and completely disassociated herself from Putin over the long term, I would be willing to have a conversation.”Ms. Netrebko once endorsed Mr. Putin’s re-election and has over the years offered support for his leadership. In 2014, she was photographed holding a flag used by Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine. In her statement this week, she said, “I acknowledge and regret that past actions or statements of mine could have been misinterpreted.”Now, she risks becoming persona non grata in her homeland and abroad.“She’s damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t,” said Simon Morrison, a professor of music at Princeton University who studies Russia. “She’s canceled for her years of pro-Putinism, then she critiques the war to save her international career, and then gets castigated at home for caring more about her gigs than ‘the fate of Russia.’”Ivan Nechepurenko contributed reporting. More

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      Harry Styles Tries On Synth-Pop, and 13 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Angel Olsen, Koffee, Barrie and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Harry Styles, ‘As It Was’In “As It Was,” Harry Styles latches on to the kind of peppy electro-pop that the Weeknd updated from groups like a-ha. The song is from Styles’s third album, “Harry’s House,” due May 20, and its insistently upbeat production stokes the ambiguity of the lyrics. When he sings, “In this world, it’s just us/You know it’s not the same as it was,” it’s impossible to tell whether he’s pulling away or longing to reunite. JON PARELESBarrie, ‘Jersey’The Brooklyn musician and producer Barrie Lindsay makes music that sounds like the work of an introvert with a kaleidoscopically vivid inner world. Throughout her tuneful, gently melancholy new album “Barbara,” there’s a muttered, endearingly modest quality to her vocal delivery that’s contrasted with her colorful, adventurous production choices. That signature push and pull can be heard on the album’s lush opening song “Jersey,” where, atop an intricately layered track, Lindsay shrugs sweetly, “You didn’t dream so long, I’m just the girl that you got.” LINDSAY ZOLADZAngel Olsen, ‘All the Good Times’Angel Olsen’s forthcoming album “Big Time,” out June 3, was written during an emotionally tumultuous moment in her life: At age 34, she came out as queer to her family, only to lose both of her parents, in quick succession, to illness shortly afterward. Olsen certainly knows how to capture and exorcise melodramatic feelings in her music — see: “Lark,” the bombastic leadoff track from her great 2019 album “All Mirrors” — but the first single from “Big Time” is more of a slow burn, smoldering and occasionally sparking with sudden, cathartic surges. Pivoting from the luscious synth-scapes of “All Mirrors,” “All the Good Times” harkens back to Olsen’s twangy roots, and its melody has a laid-back confidence that occasionally brings Willie Nelson to mind. “I’ll be long gone, thanks for the songs, guess it’s time to wake up from the trip we’ve been on,” Olsen sings, as the instrumentation swells to meet her suddenly impassioned croon. ZOLADZJensen McRae, ‘Take It Easy’“I don’t wanna talk about it any more,” the Los Angeles songwriter Jensen McRae announces as she begins “Take It Easy,” from her debut album, “Are You Happy Now?” But of course she does. The tone is serene, two chords riding a gentle Caribbean lilt, even as she sings about grappling with burdens that seem to be both physical and emotional. She wonders, “Atlas, did your back get sore?,” but she finds a graceful equilibrium. PARELESThomas Rhett featuring Katy Perry, ‘Where We Started’What is country music right now? It’s a far cry from great pickers and singers collaborating in real time, as it was in honky-tonk history. Like the rest of pop, it’s a construction. Thomas Rhett, a country superstar, sings about a romance with a waitress who’s hoping for a musical career, played by Katy Perry, in “Where We Started,” the last song but the title track of his new album. “I’d be playing my guitar singing those covers in an empty room,” she faux-recalls. The beats are programmed drum-machine tones, like trap, with guitars that sound like loops, and the collaboration with Perry may well have been remote. It’s an artificial path toward a real feeling. PARELESIbeyi featuring Jorja Smith, ‘Lavender and Red Roses’Hand drums and echoey, hovering voices give “Lavender and Red Roses” the atmosphere of a ritual procession, as Ibeyi — the French, Afro-Cuban twins Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Díaz — and the English singer Jorja Smith bemoan a self-destructive partner: “I’ve welcomed you with open arms baby/But you still walk towards the dark lately,” they sing, as hope fades. PARELESMichael Leonhart Orchestra featuring Elvis Costello, Joshua Redman and JSWISS, ‘Shut Him Down’The Grammy-winning Michael Leonhart Orchestra converts itself into a crack studio band on “Shut Him Down,” the guest star-fueled opener to its newest album, playing a groove infused with the bubbling patter of Nigerian juju music. Elvis Costello takes center stage, rattling off a few shifty-eyed verses from the point of view of a man fighting a charge. Then the rapper JSWISS drops his own bars, toying with wordplay and internal rhyme, before the tenor saxophonist Joshua Redman carries things to a close. Always an effusive improviser, he threatens to blow the lid off this medium-boiling track, but ultimately plays along with the chill, jammy vibe. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOJuanita Euka, ‘Motema’Over the interplay of two crinkly, echo-laden guitars, the Congolese-born vocalist Juanita Euka sings with an easy confidence on “Motema,” which means “heart” in Lingala. The track comes from “Mabanzo,” the debut album from this young heir apparent (her uncle, Franco Luambo Makiadi, was a rumba star in Congo), who grew up in Buenos Aires and has lately become a promising voice on the London music scene. RUSSONELLOKoffee, ‘Where I’m From’The Grammy-winning Jamaican singer Koffee (Mikayla Simpson) widely stretches the reggae idiom on her debut album, “Gifted,” pulling in dembow, Afrobeats and more. In “Where I’m From,” she sing-raps about tough beginnings and current success, with a scrubbing funk guitar that echoes “Shaft,” a heaving bass line, ominous piano interjections and wordless choir harmonies that are at once mournful and lofty. PARELESVince Staples, ‘Rose Street’“I don’t sing no love songs, ain’t never sang no love songs,” Vince Staples proclaims at the top of “Rose Street,” and the title of the upcoming album it’ll appear on is possibly an explanation: “Ramona Park Broke My Heart.” As he raps nimbly atop a bass-heavy, vaguely ghostly beat, though, he gradually lets his guard down and confesses the reasons he’s reluctant to commit to the girl who wants him to stick around. “I promise you, you don’t gotta stress, it’s gon’ be OK,” he assures her before admitting, “OK, I’m lying, living day by day.” ZOLADZPup, ‘Totally Fine’The Toronto band Pup has long made frenetic punk-pop with neat verse-chorus-bridge structures underlying Stefan Babcock’s raucously overwrought and fully self-aware lead vocals. “Totally Fine,” from the band’s fourth album, “The Unraveling of Puptheband,” cranks everything up: feedback, drums, high and low guitars, Babcock’s blurted admission that “I just couldn’t decide/Whether I’m at my worst or I’m totally fine.” And then it cranks up further, with a big, stadium-ready singalong. The video, a fine sendup of tech-bro vanity, is a bonus. PARELESsadie, ‘Nowhere’Anna Schwab, the Brooklyn songwriter and producer who records as sadie, uses the twitchy double time, the computer-warped vocals and the cheap-sounding presets of hyperpop as a digital native. Yet in “Nowhere,” she also conveys something more than games-playing: a sense of how hard it is to cope with the pressures of 21st-century romance. “Think I’ll get it all right/Then it’s over,” she sings with knowing resignation. PARELESFlume featuring Caroline Polachek, ‘Sirens’In her purest soprano, Caroline Polachek sings her most benevolent aspirations, written during a pandemic peak: “If I could I’d raise my arm/And wave a wand to end all harm.” The Australian electronic musician Flume and his co-producer, Danny L. Harle, give her ethereal support at first — tremulous string tones and echoey arpeggios — but then throw up all sorts of sonic obstacles: clattering, thudding, lurching, scraping, distorting, and even bringing back the sirens she wishes she never had to hear again. PARELESGerald Clayton featuring Charles Lloyd, ‘Peace Invocation’The coolly warbling saxophone sound of Charles Lloyd, 84, is unmistakable on “Peace Invocation,” a duet with the pianist Gerald Clayton that appears on the younger musician’s newest album, “Bells on Sand.” The influence of a couple of other legendary saxophonist-composers hangs over this track, too: There’s the open-ended, shadow-casting style of Wayne Shorter, and hints of John Coltrane’s classic “Naima” in the irresolution of Clayton’s bittersweet melody. RUSSONELLO More

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      A Filmmaker’s Journey to the Center of Celine Dion

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      In her kooky, rambunctious biopic “Aline,” the French comedian Valérie Lemercier drew from her own life to play the Quebecois pop star at every stage of hers.Valérie Lemercier’s new film is about an endearingly quirky, mega-famous Canadian belter. Her hits include “My Heart Will Go On” and “The Power of Love.” She was happily married to her much older manager.No, not Celine Dion, but Aline Dieu.“Aline,” which Lemercier directed and stars in, is kooky and heartfelt, loving and wonderfully bonkers — not unlike the superstar who inspired it in all but name. The movie scrupulously incorporates the major themes present in most traditional biopics — family, love, struggle, art — while slyly tweaking them. And a decisive step was switching from Celine to Aline.“I started with the real names,” Lemercier said in a video call from Paris in December. “But Brigitte Buc, my co-writer, told me, ‘Change them, it’ll be simpler.’ And it was true: It became easier, we could make up things.”Ahead of its American release on April 8, “Aline” has already earned accolades. The multihyphenate Lemercier, one of France’s most idiosyncratic artists for more than three decades, won the César Award for best actress in February; the movie, her sixth behind the camera, earned 10 nominations. “Artists publicly recommended the film, and that’s not common in France,” Lemercier said. “I got a lot of supportive messages from directors, as if they were saying I had earned the right to be in their club.”While the film starts with a disclaimer that it is “a work of fiction,” it uses Dion music (Lemercier lip-syncs excerpts from the Dion songbook performed by Victoria Sio) and is largely faithful to her story arc, from childhood in a hardscrabble Quebecois family to international stardom and, most importantly, to her passionate relationship with René Angélil, the music manager who discovered her when she was 12 and he was 38, and became her husband 14 years later.Still, “Aline” reflects distinct aesthetic and narrative choices, so much so that after the film’s presentation at the 2021 Cannes festival, Kyle Buchanan of The New York Times wrote that “it steers into its eccentricities so hard that it somehow boomerangs back into auteurism.”Among the many flourishes was the decision by Lemercier, 58, to play Aline at every stage in her life — including as a 5-year-old, with a little C.G.I. and forced-perspective tricks. This would not have surprised audiences in France, where “Aline” came out in November, because Lemercier, known for her biting comic style, has long portrayed children in TV sketches and in her one-woman performances; in one of her signatures sketches, she plays a twitchy contestant on a kids’ talent show. “Little girls, more than little boys, fascinate me — what they say, what they imagine, what goes on in their mind,” Lemercier said.“Aline” makes ample use of Celine Dion’s songbook, with Lemercier lip-syncing to the hits.Roadside Attractions and Samuel Goldwyn FilmsBut her choice to tackle young Celine herself was a moral, as well as artistic, one. Lemercier, as an adult, felt she was better equipped to handle potentially sensitive scenes, such as when the young Aline visits a dentist.“I’m often asked why I played her as a child, and I often say I’m like a lawyer defending her client: I’m not going to send out my assistant to handle the beginning, when it’s tough,” she said. “I don’t want to send out a kid to the dentist so she can open her mouth wide to display her crooked teeth. I heard unpleasant comments about my appearance when I was a child, so I wanted to be the one on the receiving end in the movie. I didn’t want to just play the sexy, glamorous woman we see at the end.”There are hints of autobiography throughout the film, particularly in young Aline’s drive to perform. Lemercier grew up in a farming family with three sisters and learned quickly that her clowning around could lighten her depressed mother’s mood. “When I made people laugh at a young age, even younger than five, I immediately felt that I existed, that I had a purpose, that I would not be useless,” Lemercier said. “For me, it’s the pleasure of making people laugh, and for her, it’s the pleasure of singing.”Born in Normandy, Lemercier moved to Paris at 18, and her career took off in the late 1980s thanks to cameos in the sketch series “Palace.” Her commercial breakthrough came in 1993 with the blockbuster “The Visitors,” which earned her a César for best supporting actress, and she made her feature debut as a director in 1997 with “Quadrille,” an archly stylish, beautifully art-directed adaptation of a Sacha Guitry play.It was through one of her solo outings, in the mid-1990s, that she was converted to the church of Celine. “I was doing a show at the Théâtre de Paris, and an usher, who was a Celine fan, sang me her songs,” Lemercier recalled. She decided to make a film about the star after spotting her at the funeral for Angélil, who died in 2016. “He wasn’t there anymore, and I wondered how she would cope. It touched me.”For French viewers, the film’s affectionate tone scrambled their notions of Lemercier and her style. Her humor can be quite dark, especially at the theater, and she gleefully exploits the jarring discrepancy between her elegant, poised appearance — she looked impeccably put together in our video chat — and crude, often scatological jokes. Her satirical barbs have not spared peers like Juliette Binoche, who was once the target of a biting fake commercial.“Everybody assumed I was going to make a parody, but that was never my plan,” Lemercier said of “Aline.” “I’m not much for tenderness; it really bugs me, generally speaking, and I tend to go more for sarcasm. But this time around — no,” she continued. “I wanted to be sincere, to do an open love letter.” (Some of Dion’s siblings have criticized the film for, among other things, what they felt was a cartoonish portrayal of their family. Early in the process, Lemercier passed on her script to Dion’s French manager, whom she said approved of the tone; a spokesperson stated in an email that “Celine has not seen the movie, nor does she have any comments about it.”)“There is no condescension, no snobbery in the film,” the musician Bertrand Burgalat, who produced Lemercier’s album, “Chante” (1996), and scored two of her movies, said by email. “She does not treat Celine Dion as a pop object, either, like Jeff Koons did with Cicciolina,” he added, referring to the provocateur artist’s relationship with his former wife and muse.If there were emotions in need of some untangling, they came more from Lemercier’s conflicted relationship with Quebec, where her first live appearance, in 1990, had turned into a debacle. “Air Canada had purchased all the seats for its employees, who thought they were going to see Claudine Mercier, a Quebecois imitator,” she said. “Everybody got up and left, and I ended the show in front of an empty room. I cried all night. I was wounded. So this movie was a way to return to Quebec with my head held high. Or at least to be better understood there.”Capturing the Quebecois culture was key to Lemercier, who extensively researched the province’s culture and mores and insisted on local casting. “I demanded — and it was not easy — Quebecois actors who are unknown in France,” she said. “I fought one of the film’s backers, who did not want to hear of them.” Among those actors was Sylvain Marcel, who played the Angélil character (renamed Guy-Claude Kamar) and thus had to help sell the romance between the singer and a man nearly 30 years her senior.“It’s very delicate, because the story revolves around their love,” the Quebecois journalist Denise Bombardier, who once shadowed Dion on tour for a 2009 book, said on the phone.For Marcel, who comes from the same Montreal suburb as Dion, everything flowed from a relatively straightforward motivation. “For me the idea was, ‘You love her, it’s crazy how much you love her,’ ” he said in a video conversation. “And that’s based on what René experienced with her.”The film does take liberties with some details of Dion’s life, but only to find a way into a psyche that, after almost 35 years in the limelight, remains somewhat opaque. “It’s about creating a Celine flavor, a flavor called Aline,” Lemercier said.The most prominent flight of fancy is an extended scene in which Aline walks the streets of Las Vegas, alone and forlorn. And yet for Bombardier, it reaches a greater truth. “It’s probably the most realistic scene in the entire movie,” she said. “She’s locked into her fame — it’s a loneliness we can’t comprehend. There’s a tragic dimension to this type of person, and that’s why I bow down to how perceptive this invented scene is.”Marcel goes even further: “It’s not a biopic, it’s a metaphor about a life that’s extraordinary but also nightmarish sometimes.”For Lemercier, that dark side is part of the equation, but only part. “I don’t talk about it, but when she plays golf for the first time, the balls get in the hole — she’s just a beginner, but it works,” she said. “It’s pleasant to play someone whose dreams come true.” More

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      A Beckett Play Comes Home to Paris, as an Opera

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      “Fin de Partie,” an opera of “Endgame,” will be sung at the Palais Garnier in French, the language it was written in.That grim and giddy slice of existentialism called Samuel Beckett Land doesn’t exactly scream out to be musically adapted, but the world of opera, where tragedy and comedy coexist, is exactly where at least one of his plays fits in.“Fin de Partie,” the opera of Beckett’s masterly “Endgame,” makes its French premiere on April 28 at the Palais Garnier in Paris. It is a sort of homecoming for this adaptation of the four-person, one-act play that he wrote in France, where he lived much of his adult life, after leaving his native Ireland.“Fin de Partie” reveals how Beckett’s play may be ideally suited to operatic interpretation and can now be appreciated anew since his original French words will now be sung, bringing the opera full circle four years after its 2018 premiere to a rapturous reception at La Scala in Milan.The esteemed Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag, known mostly for extremely short works, sometimes only minutes or seconds long, wrote the opera — his first — in his late 80s. He also wrote the French libretto, which will now be sung for the first time in France.The same libretto was used at La Scala and in subsequent productions in Amsterdam and in Valencia, Spain. La Scala’s general director at the time, Alexander Pereira, persevered for a decade to bring the work to the stage, saying Mr. Kurtag is “probably the most important composer in the world at this moment.”It’s been a thrilling journey for those involved — and for those watching from the sidelines — to bring the piece to France four years later.“Beckett did not want this play set to music because he felt they were music as they were, and to add music would affect the impact, but Kurtag has a very special status in the musical world,” said the French-Lebanese director Pierre Audi, who is helming this production, which runs through May 19, as he has the previous three. “He has a very singular language that is very clearly compatible with Beckett.”The Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag was in his late 80s when he wrote the Beckett opera. He also wrote the French libretto.Akos Stiller for The New York TimesThe play premiered in 1957 at the Royal Court Theater in London in Beckett’s original French, which he later translated into English. While it was not as successful as “Waiting for Godot” (also written in French, its premiere was several years earlier in Paris), it is considered among his finest works.“Endgame” tells the story of Hamm, a blind and belligerent man who uses a wheelchair; his befuddled companion, Clov; and Hamm’s elderly parents, who live in trash cans (and are therefore about as happy as you’d imagine them to be). In a stark and empty room, they await some sort of finality, quarreling and reminiscing in the way Beckett characters do: desperate, sad and remarkably funny.“Fin de Partie” is the first musical or operatic adaptation of any work by Beckett, who died in 1989, since his estate has long guarded against adaptations.The French composer Pierre Boulez, who died in 2016, had for years expressed interest in adapting “Waiting for Godot” as an opera. That never came to fruition, but Mr. Krutag’s proposal to adapt “Fin de Partie” apparently made sense.“Edward Beckett, Samuel Beckett’s nephew, has a very astute sense of what his uncle would and would not have wanted,” said Jean-Michel Rabaté, an author, professor and Beckett authority. “Through music, this play takes on a new relevance, because what Kurtag has done through composing is interpret the play.”But interpreting Beckett is akin to interpreting, say, Eugène Ionesco or Harold Pinter. Absurdist theater is so tied to its language and a nuanced humor that it’s not an obvious, or simple, choice to interpret. Tone is key, Mr. Audi said.“Kurtag is faithful to Beckett and has done something that you can argue goes in a sense the way Beckett wanted his plays to be performed,” he explained. “A musical version is by definition an interpretation. You are making interpretive decisions.”Beckett was no stranger to interpretation himself. He translated French poetry into English, and wrote many of his early poems in French, long before he began writing plays.“What is interesting is that he decided to write in French, first in poetry,” Mr. Rabaté said. “French is much simpler and lyrical. He translated a lot of the French Surrealist poets, and in English they were opaque and full of illusion. But in French it was simple and you just heard the voice.”Samuel Beckett, at a 1961 rehearsal of “Waiting for Godot” in Paris, did not want his plays set to music as he believed the words were already music as written.Boris Lipnitzki/Roger Viollet, via Getty ImageBeckett’s ties to France, and the French language, are legendary. He could have fled France when the Nazis invaded in 1940, but, as he was quoted as saying, “I preferred France in war to Ireland in peace.”He joined the French Resistance, and even though he was fluent in French, he had an Irish accent, which made him vulnerable to being discovered. After almost being caught by the Gestapo in Paris, he lived in rural southern France in hiding for many years until the war ended.“His French was oral French learned in the countryside when he was hiding from the Nazis,” Mr. Rabaté said. “‘Fin de Partie’ has a few untranslatable moments in French, because the jokes are funnier in French and the French text is much more bawdy.”This toggling between the languages proved interesting when his plays, usually written in French, became sensations on the English-speaking stage, despite not only some humor lost in translation but also the severe censorship laws in England in the 1950s (cue the bodily functions and anatomical references of “Godot”).Over the decades, Beckett’s works became standard repertory, but perhaps it was time for the first opera based on one of his works, Mr. Audi pointed out, especially since Mr. Kurtag saw the original Paris production of “Fin de Partie” in the early 1960s and was awestruck.“You need a very special kind of a composer to capture the essence of Beckett, but I don’t see many composers who have that kind of passion for Beckett,” Mr. Audi said. “You need to be obsessed with Beckett. Mr. Kurtag has had that for much of his life.”Mr. Kurtag, now 96 and living in Budapest, was unable to travel to see any of the previous productions and is not expected to go to Paris. Two performances that were planned in Hungary were canceled because of the pandemic. But, Mr. Audi said, Mr. Kurtag has seen a video recording of the original production and attended a concert version, which included the original cast, in Budapest in 2018.For Mr. Audi, it’s a career high to see an original piece of work be so seamlessly adapted.“My role as a director is to arbitrate between the composer’s vision and the writer’s vision,” Mr. Audi said. “In the end what he has composed is the essence of the play. For me the opera is complete.” More

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      Paris Opera Director Alexander Neef Broadens Its Repertory

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      Alexander Neef plans an innovative approach to keep audiences happy, even as he works to stem financial losses.To have taken over as director of the Paris Opera one year earlier than planned, just as the longest strike in the company’s history was morphing into the worst global pandemic in a century, might reasonably have rattled Alexander Neef.But if it did, he doesn’t show it. This German impresario, who dresses with elegance and speaks with care, is not, shall we say, operatic in his manner.In fact, even at the suggestion that he was offered a poisoned chalice when he took over in 2020, Mr. Neef, 48, did not take the bait. “It hasn’t been a bad ride,” he said in a video interview. “In the end, you accept and then you assume.”One reason that he was perhaps not unnerved by the challenge was that he had already worked at the Paris Opera, as casting director for the director Gerard Mortier from 2004 to 2008. “A lot of the staff was there when I was last there, and people had some kind of idea who they were dealing with,” he noted.But another reason was that, faced with the cancellation of hundreds of performances, the French government stepped in with an enormous package of emergency aid worth 86 million euros, or nearly $95 million. And it was no small asset that Mr. Neef was chosen for the job by President Emmanuel Macron himself. “A lot of my colleagues who were appointed by him feel that there is an investment in our success,” Mr. Neef said.Mr. Neef attending the inaugural concert by Paris Opera’s music director, Gustavo Dudamel, at the Palais Garnier in September.Pascal Le Segretain/Getty ImagesStill, when it comes to opera managers, there is no consensus on how to measure success. Are they applauded for using their fund-raising skills to help balance the books? Are they remembered for putting on large productions featuring star performers with little concern for the cost? Clearly audiences are more interested in what takes place onstage than in the vagaries of opera house budgets, but just as clearly, they are related.For the public, then, the least exciting aspect of Mr. Neef’s strategy is to stem the Paris Opera’s losses by the 2024-25 season, by which time emergency government support will probably no longer be provided. With this in mind, and with about 250 of the 1,500 members of the company’s staff expected to retire by 2025, he said he hoped not to have to replace them all, thereby saving 50 to 100 salaries.But how its limited resources are used also serves to determine an opera house’s standing. And here again, Mr. Neef has some innovative, albeit simple, ideas. For instance, he prefers not to have the Paris Opera’s two large theaters — the Palais Garnier and the Bastille Opera — resemble “permanent festivals,” with splashy productions that are never revived.“Every one of my predecessors produced a new ‘La Traviata,’ which is rather unusual because that means a new ‘La Traviata’ every five years,” he said. “I think the strategy is that we create a ‘La Traviata’ we can keep for a longer period, and in that case we can create many other things that are not in our repertory.“Now we’re rehearsing Massenet’s ‘Cendrillon,’ which has never been in the Paris Opera repertory,” he went on, “or we’re doing Bernstein’s ‘A Quiet Place’ for the very first time. It’s not about being cautious, it’s about broadening the repertory and not investing in a production that you do once and never again.”That approach was apparent this season, Mr. Neef’s first, which ends in July, and in the 2022-23 season, which he announced this week. It also embraces an interesting change in emphasis wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic.“Over the past few decades,” he said, “there has been a transfer of power from the institution to the audience, which has been reinforced by the pandemic. I think audiences have a much larger awareness today that we need them. We need them as ticket-buyers, as donors and as citizens who are convinced that an organization like the Paris Opera has a role to play.”But pleasing audiences is no easy task. “I always say that we have 2,700 seats at the Bastille and we have 2,700 audiences every night,” he said, adding that what counts is how people interact with the production. “I think indifference is our biggest enemy, because when people are bored at the opera or they don’t really know why they came, that is way more dangerous than a strong negative reaction.”As it happens, experience shows that Paris audiences quite often heckle directors and designers, while the reaction to lead singers can go from polite applause to wild, cheering enthusiasm. And the talent of the singers seems to count more than their fame, which is no doubt lucky because, as Mr. Neef noted, “it’s not what it used to be 20 years ago when you could literally rely on certain names to fill the theater.”Anna Netrebko as Donna Leonora in “La Forza del Destino” in London in 2019. She is scheduled to sing the role next season in Paris.Bill CooperOne name that has traditionally sold tickets is that of the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, who has been excluded from the Metropolitan Opera of New York for two seasons for not repudiating President Vladimir V. Putin following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the published 2022-23 season of the Paris Opera, however, Ms. Netrebko is still down to sing the role of Donna Leonora in “La Forza del Destino” in December.“We printed the program before the invasion, and we’ll evaluate the situation between now and November to see if it’s possible for her to appear or not,” Mr. Neef said. “It’s a tricky situation. It’s not the government’s position, and it’s certainly not my personal position now, to go to all or certain Russian artists and say, if you don’t publicly denounce the situation, we cannot work with you.”As it happens, a production of Mussorgsky’s “Khovanshchina” with a largely Russian-speaking cast ended its Paris run six days before the invasion, while lead singers in a production of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” with performances during the first three weeks of the war in Ukraine, included two Russians, one Ukrainian, one Belarusian and one Romanian. “I think most of them felt they didn’t know exactly what was going on and they’d like to be invisible,” Mr. Neef said.Mr. Neef has a five-year appointment as director of the Paris Opera with the possibility of a second similar term, so any discussion of his legacy is wildly premature. But it could include an initiative he is planning for next season: Taking his inspiration from many German opera houses, he plans to create a troupe of 15 to 20 professional singers who will be on salary (and not work as freelancers, as most soloists do) and will take on all but the biggest roles.Mr. Neef said he believed that greater job stability had become more appealing to cast members over the past two years. “There’s a lot of interest in being resident in one city,” he said, “either because you have a family, or the attraction of going to a new city every few weeks is not as high as it used to be.”So, just as some lead dancers in the Paris Opera Ballet Company have fan clubs, it may not be long before once-unknown members of the new troupe have an ardent following of their own. More