Music

Her 2020 song “Punching Bag” was anointed by an influential Spotify playlist.Name: WalliceAge: 23Hometown: Los AngelesCurrently Lives: In a three-bedroom bungalow house in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles with her longtime boyfriend, Callaghan Kevany, and a friend.Claim to Fame: Wallice (whose full name is Wallice Hana Watanabe) is a singer-songwriter best known for “Punching Bag,” a song about self-deception in toxic relationships; her follow-up hit, “23,” about the perils of living with her mother during the pandemic, has had three million streams on Spotify. Sample lyric: “I’m terrified of the future/ Scared that I’ll still be a loser.” “I credit the pandemic to be able to find an audience, because I think a lot of people had time to listen to music and find new artists,” Wallice said.Big Break: In 2020, shortly after Wallice released “Punching Bag,” Spotify decided to feature the song on its Lorem playlist — an influential list that showcases new artists and now has more than 900,000 followers. “A lot of my friends are indie artists that are coming up in the scene,” she said. “They kept reposting the song, and that’s how I got Spotify’s attention.” The song took off from there and has been streamed more than four million times.Latest Project: In October, Wallice signed with Dirty Hit, an independent record label in London that’s also home to the 1975, an English boy band. In November she released the single “Wisdom Tooth,” a bubbly pop tune that was written the night before she went to the dentist. “I was so nervous,” she said. “I had a recording session that day and was like, ‘There’s no way I can write about anything else.’”Carlos Jaramillo for The New York TimesNext Thing: In the new year, she’ll join the band Still Woozy on tour. “I’m really excited about going on tour, especially since my bandmates are my best friends,” she said. “My boyfriend is our guitar player, and my bass player I’ve known forever.”What’s in a Name?: Wallice went without a name at birth because her parents thought they were having a boy. A few days later, her father named her after Wallis Simpson, the American socialite who later became the wife of Prince Edward, after he abdicated the British throne to marry her. “I really like my name, and I love how it is unique,” Wallice said. More

SEOUL — Suga, a member of the global K-pop phenomenon BTS, has tested positive for the coronavirus, the group’s management company said on Friday.The company, Big Hit Music, said in a statement that Suga, 28, who returned to South Korea from the United States on Thursday, discovered on Friday that he was infected while in quarantine and after taking a P.C.R. test.He had tested negative before traveling to the United States, the statement said, and had received his second vaccine dose in August.Suga had no contact with the other members of BTS — RM, Jin, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook — the statement said. He was not displaying any symptoms as of Friday, and he was isolating at home, the company said.The news comes a month after another K-pop megastar, Lalisa Manoban, 24, of Blackpink, better known as Lisa, also tested positive for the coronavirus. The other members of Blackpink — Jennie, Jisoo and Rosé — tested negative for the virus, the production company, YG Entertainment, said in an emailed statement last month.Suga, the stage name for the artist Min Yoon-gi, made his debut with BTS in 2013. The Korean pop group, a multibillion-dollar act, is known for dynamic dance moves, catchy lyrics and fiercely devoted fans.In 2018, BTS became the first K-pop group to top the Billboard album chart, with “Love Yourself: Tear.” In September this year, the group gave a speech at the U.N. headquarters in New York, promoting coronavirus vaccinations and praising young people for their resiliency during the pandemic.Suga has stepped out for solo projects, sometimes performing as Agust D, and as a commercial producer. In an interview with GQ Australia that was published this week, he said: “All three are me. They each take up a third of myself, and one isn’t more reflective of me than another. I simply give people a choice. These three sides of myself are incredibly different, so I’m giving people a choice to see me as they want.”This week, Billboard’s Charts reported that Suga and Juice WRLD, the stage name for the artist Jarad A. Higgins, had the best-selling song in the United States with “Girl of My Dreams,” the first time a song by either artist to hit No. 1 on any chart, according to Yahoo News. Juice WRLD died in December 2019, and the song is part of the artist’s posthumous album, “Fighting Demons.”John Yoon More

The Vienna Philharmonic’s annual performance brings to light memories and traditions, both bright and dark.Every year, classical music fans can count on the Vienna Philharmonic to ring in the New Year with style — whether they are among the exclusive crowd that attends in person or one of the millions of viewers who tune in from over 90 countries.The New Year’s Concert at the Musikverein, the concert hall that is the orchestra’s home in Vienna, took place on television and online in 2021 because of pandemic restrictions. For 2022, it returns live and will also be made available as a web stream on medici.tv. Daniel Barenboim conducts for the third time.The program, consisting primarily of dance numbers by the Strauss dynasty, creates a festive atmosphere. But if the waltz rhythms are intoxicating, the numbers are laden with layers of history.“Every work is like a microcosm,” said the Philharmonic’s chairman, Daniel Froschauer, of the period in the mid-19th century when this music emerged. “Austria was increasingly losing political power. The monarchy was in this sense dying away. This melancholy or yearning for the past comes strongly to the fore.”The universality of these emotions, he said, is part of the annual concert’s “recipe for success.”“Everyone carries a longing for something in the past — childhood, a homeland, a love. This music speaks to everyone.”For Mr. Barenboim, the orchestra brings a “seriousness” to the works, which he considers “one of the most wonderful things about conducting them.”“You would think that they know the style and take it lightheartedly,” he said, but that is not the case. “Not at all,” he added, noting that there is deep concentration during rehearsals.The conductor Daniel Barenboim.Jörg Carstensen/picture alliance, via Getty ImagesAt the same time, Mr. Barenboim said, certain turns such as the delay on the third beat of a Viennese waltz are “so deeply installed” that “you don’t really need to talk about them” because they are “deep in the culture.”Such music, he said, “requires quite a lot of freedom” and “it is dangerous to either overdo or underdo it.”Each year’s program is carefully designed by Mr. Froschauer and the general manager Michael Bladerer in collaboration with the conductor. Mr. Barenboim chose to include the Josef Strauss waltz “Sphärenklänge,” which he called “one of my favorite pieces of music in any context,” and the overture of the Johann Strauss Jr. operetta “Die Fledermaus.”Mr. Barenboim said the process was collaborative and comfortable. “They give you the chance to suggest works that you would like to do, and they tell you some pieces that they would like you to do.”Together with the orchestra’s four archivists, Mr. Froschauer and Mr. Bladerer also undertake research about the music’s historic context. Many of the works’ titles reflect everyday events or daily politics at the time.Both the “Phoenix March” by Josef Strauss, which opens the program this year, and the Johann Strauss waltz “Phoenix Wings” are named for a company that manufactured carriages. The march was first performed in 1861 at a concert and garden fair to mark the opening of a new park in Vienna.Josef Strauss, whose “Phoenix March” will open the New Year’s Concert this year.DeAgostini/Getty Images“All these works have a connection to something that happened in Vienna,” Mr. Froschauer said.The Johann Strauss waltz “Morning Papers,” meanwhile, was composed in the 1860s for a journalists’ association, Concordia. The “Champagne Polka” (also by Johann Strauss Jr.) that enters in the second half of the 2022 program was written in 1858 upon the appointment of the diplomat Karl Ludwig von Bruck Jr. to St. Petersburg.The coming program features two works by Joseph Hellmesberger Jr., who both performed as a violinist and conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in the late 19th century. The character piece “Heinzelmännchen” will be featured for the first time in the history of the concert.Joseph Hellmesberger Jr. not only played violin in the Vienna Philharmonic in the late 19th century but also conducted the orchestra.Imagno/Getty ImagesMr. Froschauer also said he considered it important to include Eduard Strauss, the youngest son of Johann Strauss, with two polkas. Several members Eduard conducted in the Strauss Capelle Vienna, the orchestra founded by his father, would go on to become members of the Vienna Philharmonic.It was not until 1873, however, that the orchestra warmed up to the popular dance style of the Strauss’. The first program of exclusively Strauss works took place in 1925, under the baton of Franz Schalk.The tradition of performing works from this canon for the new year, meanwhile, began in the early months of World War II. A concert of works from the Strauss dynasty on Dec. 31, 1939, served as a fund-raiser for a program of the Nazi Party.Despite their association with the “darkest chapter” in Austrian history and that of the Philharmonic, these waltzes and polkas have also lived on as symbols of Viennese charm.The televised version of the upcoming concert will feature a dance interlude of the Lipizzaner horses, a breed that has been trained since the days of the Hapsburg Empire to execute jumps and choreographed steps.The Musikverein circa 1870.Oprawil/Imagno, via Getty ImagesMr. Froschauer explained the need to juxtapose different kinds of dance numbers — from a classic waltz such as “Morgenblätter,” to the fast polka “Kleine Chronik,” to the chorale-inflected waltz “Nachtschwärmer” of Carl Michael Ziehrer, which will have its premiere at a New Year’s Concert. “We try to keep things interesting for the orchestra,” he said.That also includes bringing in a different conductor every year. A maestro such as Mr. Barenboim, who celebrates his 80th birthday next year, enjoys a relationship based on not only years of artistic partnership but also mutual friendship.“When I’m with them, I feel part of them,” he said. “And I feel they are part of me — knowing very well that in a few days’ time, somebody else will be in a similar situation.”Mr. Barenboim noted that because the self-governed orchestra operates without a general music director, “they have a sense of responsibility. And of historical significance. Therefore, they can treat the guest conductors in a spirit of admiration, knowing that nobody will get jealous about his colleagues.”Mr. Froschauer called the New Year’s Concert “a sign of hope and love” — “that the whole world is a concert hall, that everyone can listen to the concert together.”“It is something reassuring,” Mr. Bladerer added.“Everyone knows they can turn on the television on the first [of January] and hear this music. That would also be important during a pandemic, in this difficult time.” More

As the Omicron variant looms, Bartlett Sher’s production of Verdi’s classic is set to open on New Year’s Eve.Bartlett Sher must have logged over a mile inside the Metropolitan Opera as a rehearsal for his staging of Verdi’s “Rigoletto” unfolded in fits and starts on a recent morning.Whenever the singers came to a stop, Sher sprinted. Sometimes up stairs near the orchestra pit, with notes for the cast. Sometimes up the aisle of the auditorium to confer with a team working at consoles and laptops. He had a growing list of things to refine: the set’s paint job, the lighting, the layering of a party scene’s crowded action.“I need another month,” he said, pausing to scrutinize the stage.Instead, Sher had about two weeks. His “Rigoletto” opens Dec. 31, part of the Met’s annual New Year’s Eve gala, with Daniele Rustioni conducting and Quinn Kelsey in the title role. This staging, a coproduction with the Berlin State Opera, premiered in Germany in June 2019. But so much has changed in transit that it’s been virtually rebuilt from scratch — down to the wire and under the threat of the Omicron variant.Bartlett Sher, left, rehearsing his staging with Sylvia D’Eramo and Piotr Beczala.Julieta Cervantes for The New York TimesThe new “Rigoletto” by Sher — a busy Tony Award-winning director whose work is currently on Broadway (“To Kill a Mockingbird”) and coming soon to Lincoln Center Theater (“Intimate Apparel”) — is the third to be seen at the Met this century. Piotr Beczala, the tenor starring as the predatory Duke of Mantua, jokingly said in an interview that he is “the Duke on duty here”: In 2006, he made his company debut with the role in Otto Schenk’s 1989 production, then originated it in Michael Mayer’s Rat Pack “Rigoletto” in 2013.That’s a lot of turnover for a house where some stagings linger for decades. Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said that there is no “standardized thinking” behind replacing productions. Two, Franco Zeffirelli’s lavishly traditional takes on “La Bohème” and “Turandot,” are not going anywhere, Gelb said. But he has noticed that audiences tend to lose interest more quickly in modern updates — such as Mayer’s “Rigoletto,” set in 1960s Las Vegas instead of the libretto’s 16th-century Italy.Waning interest wasn’t the only problem with Mayer’s production. Its muddled dramaturgy baffled critics, and it developed a reputation as a neon-lit spectacle of little substance. Reviewing the premiere, Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times wrote that the concept was “hardly audacious” and “not even that original.” When it was notable, it was as a vehicle for guest artists — including the soprano Rosa Feola, who had a sensational Met debut as Rigoletto’s daughter, Gilda, in 2019 and is returning to that role now.The costume designer, Catherine Zuber, left, in a fitting with the soprano Rosa Feola, who sings the innocent Gilda.Like Mayer, Sher transposes the action of the opera, but to Weimar-era Berlin — a “prefascist world,” he said, of unchecked cruelty, crime and extravagance. He avoided setting the work under Nazi rule, instead opting for the 1920s, the same milieu as the popular TV series “Babylon Berlin”: a society on the brink of upheaval. The period tracked with the libretto’s dukes and duchesses while allowing Sher to explore “how a corrupt leadership infects a culture, infects how wealth and privilege dominate and squish people below it.”Sher’s ideas hit a roadblock in Berlin. He had planned for the set to rotate on a turntable, for cinematic transitions and fruitful divisions of public and private spaces. It ended up fixed in place, an Art Deco nightclub with murals adapted from works by George Grosz, who caricatured the era’s corruption and complicity.“It was more static,” Sher recalled, “and harder to release what was in the music.”Reviews from the German press were harsh, and several were dismissive of Sher as an American. I had my own problems with the production, writing in The Times that Sher’s treatment of the Weimar Republic came off as “more of a context than a concept.”In its original Berlin incarnation, seen here, Sher’s production was different, with a static view of the set and murals made from George Grosz paintings.Brinkhoff/MogenburgSher admitted that his Berlin staging had room to grow, particularly in how to communicate the work’s psychological complexity. But he was happy with it.“I felt it was honest, and it was clear,” he said. “A good artist should accept the limitations of each iteration of what they’re doing. And this was like the workshop production to fall in love with the work.”He has now had an opportunity to revise his production the way he might during a musical’s preview performances, a luxury almost never afforded to opera. (An exception, as it happens, is “Intimate Apparel.”) His intentions for the Met revival are largely the same, he said, but it will differ from Berlin in crucial ways.At last, he has his turntable, and thus a much different set; indeed, the first view, during the prelude, is of a grungy brick exterior rather than the explosion of color inside. Gone are the Grosz murals, replaced by searing red marble — a problem with the artist’s estate, Sher said, though the scene-setting curtain, taken from a Grosz painting, remains.Costume designs for Sher’s production, which is set in Berlin on the brink of Nazi rule.The cast only recently began to rehearse with the rotating nightclub onstage. Earlier, they prepared in a basement studio with only suggestions of it — a door frame, a pillar — and Sher blocking their movement as he narrated how the set would turn. A copy of “Le Roi S’Amuse” (“The King Amuses Himself”), the Victor Hugo play that inspired the opera, was on hand for reference. Rustioni was perched on a stool, waving his baton and singing along from memory. (During breaks, he swiveled to the left to study Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro,” which he will lead at the Met beginning Jan. 8.)Beczala, who was days away from opening Massenet’s “Werther” when the Met shut down in March 2020, was back at rehearsals there for the first time since then. And Kelsey, a fixture at the house for over a decade, was bracing for his biggest role yet — “my first proper lead,” he said. Many of the directions Sher gave them during the basement rehearsal were about bringing more transparency to the opera’s complex opening scene.Clarity is a hallmark of Sher’s work, whether the production is “Rigoletto” or “South Pacific.” He said it’s something he strives for “to release the power and truth of the opera, and hopefully add to that some layer of meaning of its resonance today.”After a pause, he added with a laugh, “No big deal.”The conductor Daniele Rustioni led the score from memory in rehearsal, and used breaks to study Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro.”That resonance, Kelsey said, is very much present in the production. “It’s so surprising how that really mirrors a lot of what we’re feeling in our country now, regardless of what side you’re on — just the tension itself,” he added. More complicated are the dynamics at play among the principal characters. Rigoletto believes that the tragic events that lead to the death of his daughter are the result of a dishonored nobleman’s curse. But the opera isn’t so simple.“I like to say that the Duke is polyamorous, but he hasn’t worked out his ethical non-monogamy,” Sher said. “He just goes at everything, then drops it in a second, which is really dangerous. Yet Gilda, this poor innocent girl, is already manipulated by the ridiculously overemphatic love of her father, and she’s in a washing machine between him and the Duke. The big journey for me is to figure out how to give her some agency over these men who are dominating her.”Behind all this is the score, which opens with the theme of the curse and never really emerges from that darkness. “Verdi was so proud of the curse,” Rustioni said. “You see it repeated, the dotted rhythm coming back when Rigoletto sings. It’s like an idée fixe.”Among Rustioni’s restorations to the opera — such as an often-cut cadenza in an Act I duet for Gilda and the Duke — is keeping a line of Rigoletto’s as a string of C notes, rather than ending in a higher E flat, to echo the curse motif.Sher said he was aiming for “a mise-en-scène that ripples through the music and text.”“I think the production is very respectful toward Verdi,” Rustioni said. “Everything is built into the music, and this constantly changing, rotating element helps to carry the mood.”Sher said that the “cinematic movement” of his set was his way of achieving “a mise-en-scène that ripples through the music and text.” Ideally, he added, “with enough time you can really get it right. We’ll see.”One obstacle could get in his way. About 10 days before opening night, the Omicron variant was rapidly spreading throughout New York City. Lines snaked around the blocks of testing sites, and panic fueled a run on at-home testing kits. Broadway shows were in a precarious state of anticipation and sudden cancellations, and the storied “Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes” prematurely ended its run because of breakthrough infections in its cast.The Met, which hasn’t yet had to cancel a performance, has taken what safety measures it can — a no-exceptions vaccine mandate, with a booster requirement on the way in January, and twice-weekly testing within the company — and Gelb said that until recently he had been “extremely confident.” Now, he feels a kinship with the hapless Rigoletto.“He has his curse which ruins his life,” Gelb said. “We’re all sort of under a larger curse: We have the curse of Omicron.” More

The Vienna Philharmonic records symphonies by Anton Bruckner, a 19th-century composer, whose history with the orchestra is complicated.When the pandemic upended its plans to tour European cathedrals playing symphonies by Anton Bruckner, the Vienna Philharmonic hit the reset button.With more time than ever at home, the orchestra immersed itself in recording the works under the conductor Christian Thielemann, exploring different versions of the scores and digging into the composer’s history with the philharmonic.Symphony No. 3, No. 4 and No. 8 have already been released on the label Sony Classical. A full symphonic cycle will be rolled out both on audio and on DVD, by the classical music production company Unitel, in time for the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth in 2024.The orchestra’s general manager, Michael Bladerer, said the project allowed the musicians not just “to maintain also but improve their form” during months of lockdown when live concerts were prohibited but the orchestra was allowed to rehearse and record.“The conditions were optimal,” Mr. Bladerer said. “We could concentrate on the recordings, doing a three-hour sitting every day and working calmly.”After listening to a playback of the First Symphony, Daniel Froschauer, the philharmonic’s chairman, concluded that “the quality is simply the best, given that we had the time. The musicians were all well rested. It was the one positive experience during corona.”For the first time, thanks to periods of curtailed travel during the pandemic, the orchestra is performing not only the nine symphonies but also the Symphony in D minor — written between the first and second but never assigned an opus number — and the “Study” Symphony, which is sometimes known as No. 00.Mr. Bladerer, who happens to be a direct descendant of Bruckner through his great-grandmother, called it a “highly interesting” process to learn more about the composer’s origins through this “Nullte” or “Nullified” Symphony: “One hears a bit of [Wagner’s] ‘Lohengrin,’ Schumann, Weber,” he said. “But it is totally Bruckner.”Mr. Froschauer added that “the first day of recording was incredible”: “We were playing a work that the conductor had never led — that our orchestra had never played — by a composer named Anton Bruckner. And nevertheless I have to say that we grew together quickly.”According to Mr. Bladerer, the composer withdrew Symphony No. 00 from his catalog only after the German conductor and composer Felix Otto Dessoff, who worked with the philharmonic, called it “a symphony without a main theme.”In the case of the Second Symphony, Bruckner wanted to dedicate it to the Vienna Philharmonic. But the orchestra never even responded.“That offers a view into how one treated Bruckner at the time,” Mr. Froschauer said. “One didn’t take him seriously in Viennese [high] society,” Mr. Bladerer added. “He spoke a heavy upper Austrian dialect and moved clumsily in these circles.”The Third Symphony, dedicated to Wagner, also has a problematic history: The philharmonic rejected the work three times. At the premiere of a revised version, in 1877, audience members left the Musikverein during the finale. And the influential critic Eduard Hanslick, once a supporter of Bruckner, wrote a scathing review.For the recently released recording, Mr. Thielemann chose to conduct this version (the second of three). Mr. Bladerer said that while the first edition has very long quotes from Wagner’s music, the last contains such substantial cuts that they affect the overall form.Mr. Bladerer summed up the power of Bruckner by quoting the conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who likened the composer to “a rock who fell on earth from the moon.”In other words, Mr. Bladerer explained, “after hearing a couple of measures, one knows that it’s Bruckner.” More

The band moved its upcoming run of shows, a tradition at the arena, to April to avoid further spread of the coronavirus.The band Phish, which regularly plays New Year’s Eve concerts at Madison Square Garden, on Thursday postponed its upcoming run of shows, including a three-set performance originally planned for New Year’s Eve.“The health and safety of Phish fans, our crew and venue staff is paramount in our minds,” the band said in a statement. “While Phish has played shows this year as the pandemic has continued, this variant’s ability for rapid transmission is unprecedented.”The rescheduled shows will now take place April 20 to 23, with the three-set concert initially scheduled for New Year’s Eve moved to April 22.In its statement, Phish said that it wanted to “avoid accelerating transmission of the virus” because the group is aware that many people travel for shows like these, then return back to their communities. The band also acknowledged that “even with the strictest of tour Covid protocols,” a four-night indoor run would prolong exposure to crew and staff and increase the possibility of needing to shut down the shows.Ticket holders who can’t make the rescheduled show dates can request a refund any time in the next 30 days. Authorized ticket sellers like Ticketmaster and Phish Tickets will be contacting buyers with more information.On Wednesday, Cirque du Soleil also canceled its performances of “’Twas the Night Before” at Madison Square Garden from Wednesday through Friday because of breakthrough Covid cases in the production. (There are no shows on Saturday, but “’Twas the Night Before” is scheduled to resume on Sunday.)On Monday night, a Billy Joel concert at which all attendees were required to have at least one dose of a vaccine went ahead at the Garden. According to the concert’s listing on the venue’s website, masks were not required for fully vaccinated attendees.Two upcoming New York Knicks games on Wednesday and Saturday are still scheduled to take place. More

Each year, the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, commissions an original song for its Christmas service, giving the composer an audience of around 100 million people.LONDON — Every Christmas Eve, the British composer Cecilia McDowall follows the same routine.At 3 p.m., as family members arrive at her London home, she goes into the kitchen, turns on the radio and starts making a Christmas pudding — a slow-cooked, booze-soaked British dessert — while listening to the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, perform its Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols.That service of Bible readings and Christmas music is one of Britain’s best known festive traditions, broadcast live on radio stations worldwide, including on around 450 in the United States. A spokesman for the choir estimated that 100 million listeners would tune in.But this year, McDowall won’t be in the kitchen. Instead, she will be sitting in King’s College’s huge Gothic chapel, listening as the choir performs “There Is No Rose,” a carol she has written especially for the event.Cecilia McDowall, a British composer, wrote a carol for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols.Oxford University Press“It really is something significant,” McDowall said of the commission. “It must be the most people who’ve ever heard my music in one go.”Since the early 1980s, when the Choir of King’s College began ordering up new works for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, notable composers of religious music like John Tavener and Arvo Pärt have written for it, as well as more surprising names like Harrison Birtwistle, a British composer of spiky modernist pieces.King’s is far from alone in trying to bring new carols, or at least new settings of old texts, into the Christmas repertoire. McDowall said she had written 10 carols since the 1980s, starting with a piece for a school choir. This year, in addition to the King’s commission, she wrote a setting of “In Dulci Jubilo” for the choir of Wells Cathedral in southwest England.John Rutter, a prolific British composer of Christmas music, said in a telephone interview that this year he had also written two new carols: a setting of a William Blake poem for a cancer charity’s carol concert, and another for the Choir of Merton College, Oxford.Carol writing for choirs was a vibrant art form, Rutter said, adding that “no form of music can afford to be a museum where you’re only listening to the songs by the dead.” New works run the gamut from “something you might sing down the pub” to “refined and elegant compositions,” like McDowall’s, he added. Andrew Gant, the author of a book on a history of Christmas carols, said that some, like “The Holly and the Ivy,” are folk songs from before written records, but that many have surprisingly recent origins, far removed from the festive season. The music for “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” for instance, dates to 1840, when the German composer Felix Mendelssohn wrote the tune to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the printing press. Mendelssohn insisted the tune should never be used for religious purposes, Gant said, but 15 years later, William Cummings, a British organist, took the melody and added words from a Methodist hymn.The Choir of King’s College has commissioned a new work for its Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols since the early 1980s.Geoff RobinsonMany carols “are a series of happy accidents” like that, Gant said, adding that it was only in Victorian times that British composers started writing carols specifically for Christmas services.McDowall said the King’s College choir’s music director, Daniel Hyde, had requested that her piece provide “a moment of stillness” in the service, and asked her to keep it simple, in case choir members got sick at the last minute and new singers had to be brought in.Last December, the choir had a coronavirus outbreak in the run-up to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, then decided to cancel its live broadcast entirely as Britain was plunged into another lockdown.Hyde’s requests for an uncomplicated carol actually helped McDowall focus, she said, and the music came soon after she had found the words she wanted to use — a 15th-century hymn that tells the story of Jesus’s birth. McDowall said she had sung a setting of “There Is No Rose” by Benjamin Britten as a child and also admired a version by John Joubert. She submitted the piece in September.McDowall said she didn’t think of her carol competing against much-loved Christmas songs like “Once in Royal David’s City,” which opens the King’s service each year. “If any composer would be intimidated by the fact there exist other carols along the same lines, it’d just get in the way,” she said.Bob Chilcott, a co-editor of “Carols for Choirs” — a well-known compendium of Christmas music, first published in 1961 by Oxford University Press and updated regularly since — said there had “been a huge energy for writing new carols” in Britain over the past 20 years. Chilcott is in the process of selecting 50 new pieces for the next volume of “Carols for Choirs,” scheduled to be published in 2023. It might include contributions from contemporary composers like Caroline Shaw, he said.Most composers take one of two approaches, he said. The first is meditative, “maybe to do with talking about the quietness of the night, and the baby asleep in the manager.” The second is euphoric. “It’s all about the shepherd’s rejoicing and ‘Glory to God in the highest,’” he said. Most composers also try “to write a good tune,” Chilcott added.John Rutter, a British composer, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London this month. He has written several popular carols.Andy Paradise/Royal Philharmonic OrchestraRutter, who wrote a new carol for the King’s service in 1987, said his success with carols like the “Shepherd’s Pipe Carol” and “What Sweeter Music” — both sung in churches throughout the English-speaking world — was down to their memorable melodies, which seemed like they had been around for hundreds of years. He was “50 percent composer, and 50 percent songwriter,” he said.Hyde said McDowall’s “There Is No Rose” was centered on “a beautiful cluster” of notes that “hover, like a freeze frame,” before unfurling into a tune. “The last thing you’ll hear is the original cluster we started with, echoing in the space,” he added. “I hope people will be moved by it.”But McDowall didn’t want to say any more than Hyde. The choir likes to keep the details under wraps, and doesn’t let any recordings of the piece emerge until after it has been broadcast — by which time McDowall should be heading home to a waiting Christmas pudding. More

Two shows with Broadway aspirations, “Once Upon a One More Time” and “A Strange Loop,” represent opposite extremes of what a big, mainstream production can be.WASHINGTON — Sidney Harman Hall was bustling before a recent matinee of “Once Upon a One More Time,” a revisionist fairy tale mash-up scored with Britney Spears songs at Shakespeare Theater Company here. People were taking group selfies at one of two step-and-repeats. A few girls — and women — tittered in tiaras. Purple T-shirts and tote bags with the show’s title and the names of storybook princesses were being sold. And the theater, which has a capacity of about 700, had no empty seats in sight. At least from the outside, “Once Upon a One More Time” looked like the kind of splashy show you might find on Broadway.I was in Washington for the weekend, at the first post-opening matinee of the show, and it wasn’t the only musical in the neighborhood with Broadway aspirations; the second show I saw here, Woolly Mammoth’s production of “A Strange Loop,” by Michael R. Jackson, has just announced plans for a Broadway run in the spring. It’s a more daring work: a meta show about a queer Black playwright writing a show about a queer Black playwright that opened Off Broadway in 2019 and won the Pulitzer Prize.Two very different shows in two very different theaters less than a mile apart: “Once Upon a One More Time” and “A Strange Loop” represent opposite extremes of what a Broadway production can be.Written by Jon Hartmere and directed and choreographed by the husband-and-wife team Keone and Mari Madrid, “Once Upon a One More Time” is set inside an abstract representation of the world of children’s storybooks. That’s to say that whenever a child opens a book of fairy tales, the denizens of this magical kingdom must act out the classic plots for the reader. Meanwhile, the princes and princesses — Snow White (Aisha Jackson), the Little Mermaid (Lauren Zakrin), Sleeping Beauty (Ashley Chiu), the Princess and the Pea (Morgan Weed), Rapunzel (Wonu Ogunfowora) and several others — hang around like on-call workers, waiting for their boss, the Narrator, to direct them through the scenes of their tales, which they must obediently act out in order to have their happily ever after.Princesses take a stand: From left, Lauren Zakrin, Selene Haro, Ashley Chiu, Adrianna Weir (seated), Wonu Ogunfowora, Aisha Jackson, Jennifer Florentino and Amy Hillner Larsen.Mathew MurphyBut Cinderella (Briga Heelan) isn’t happy, and becomes even less so after she learns that her Prince Charming (Justin Guarini) is being paid for his services while she isn’t. Then Cinderella meets the Notorious O.F.G. (that’s Original Fairy Godmother, comically played by Brooke Dillman), who comes all the way from the mystical land of Flatbush, Brooklyn, to give poor Cin a copy of “The Feminine Mystique.” Suddenly enlightened by feminist theory, Cinderella leads her fellow princesses in protest, demanding that they be allowed to write their own stories.The audience cheered at the more clever pairings of popular Spears songs with important plot points, like an unfaithful prince singing “Oops! … I Did It Again” or Cinderella’s evil stepmother singing “Toxic.”But as I watched the show, I wondered: Who is the target audience for this? So many Broadway shows are aimed at a general audience, and similarly, “Once Upon a One More Time” seems to want to appeal to both children and adults. The fairy tale premise (nodding to shows like “Into the Woods” and “Shrek”) and the earnest sermonizing seem to point to an audience of kids. But the lines of dialogue about microaggressions (the Narrator warns Cinderella about being “difficult,” getting “hysterical” and using a “shrill” voice, all of which made the audience gasp), along with some mild sex jokes, are clearly aimed at knowing adults. Plus, call me conventional, but I doubt a children’s show would include a song called “Work Bitch.” In aiming for a Broadway stage, “Once Upon a One More Time” still seems to be figuring out what its prospective audience would look like.With its blatant messaging about female empowerment and revisionist approach, not unlike two recent Broadway musicals — “Six” and “Diana,” both of which recast famous women from history as self-possessed and self-reliant feminist icons — “Once Upon a One More Time” reflects the broad strokes of modern-day feminism but shies away from anything too hefty or complex. That includes the pink-pigtailed elephant in the room: Spears herself, who has documented what she has called years of exploitation in her quest to end her conservatorship. So particularly the Britney faithful will most likely be disappointed to find the pop star absent from a show largely based on the products of her career.“A Strange Loop” has announced plans to transfer to Broadway in the spring. From left: James Jackson Jr., L Morgan Lee, Antwayn Hopper, John-Andrew Morrison, Jaquel Spivey (seated right), Jason Veasey and John-Michael Lyles.Marc J. FranklinAt Woolly Mammoth’s space, just a few blocks from Sidney Harman Hall, there were no selfie stations or gift kiosks. The theater seats less than 300 people, and the content of Jackson’s “A Strange Loop” could not be more different from “Once Upon a One More Time.”Directed by Stephen Brackett, “A Strange Loop” is a carnival of its protagonist’s self-loathing, his insecurities, his introspective reveries on sexuality and identity, society, family and religion. It’s hilarious until it turns vicious, and vice versa. And it defines itself through a critique of commercial productions, like the long-running Broadway show “The Lion King,” as well as through a deconstruction of the expectations society may have of a Black, queer artist, which can crush brave new work.The musical rejects the polite, family-friendly themes and the tidy endings of what its protagonist, a Broadway usher named Usher (Jaquel Spivey), sees at work. Full of references to sexual assault and racism, and with enough offensive language to fill a gallon-size swear jar, “A Strange Loop” aims to bring taboo topics to mainstream theater. The Woolly Mammoth crowd snapped and mmhmm-ed to lines breaking down queer and race politics; at one point a man in the row behind me got out of his seat and waved his arms around to the music as if he were at a rave — if raves played devastating songs about homophobia and abuse.Walking out of the theater afterward, I overheard a group of friends wonder if “A Strange Loop” could go to Broadway. One woman had reservations; she liked it, she said, but — and here she paused before awkwardly stumbling through her qualifier — it was a musical about AIDS.I held my tongue — because I could’ve mentioned that “Rent” and “Angels in America” were two Broadway shows about AIDS. Or that “A Strange Loop” is about so much more than AIDS. Or that this season, Broadway had “Dana H.,” a show about kidnapping and assault, and “Is This a Room,” about a real F.B.I. investigation — both fantastic, critically acclaimed works of art. Or that “Slave Play” brought similarly explicit language and sexual content to Broadway in 2019 and has now reopened.Or I could’ve simply said that this beautifully brutal work of theater is already headed to Broadway. More