Music

Known for his broad vocal register, he was part of a quartet that helped make popular the genre of operatic pop, or “popera.”Carlos Marín, a Spanish singer and a member of Il Divo, the hit multinational quartet, died in Manchester, England, on Sunday, according to the musical group and local news media reports. He was 53.“It is with heavy hearts that we are letting you know that our friend and partner, Carlos Marín, has passed away,” Il Divo wrote in a post on Twitter on Sunday.“He will be missed by his friends, family and fans. There will never be another voice or spirit like Carlos,” Il Divo added. “We will miss our dear friend.”The musical group did not specify a cause of death. He was admitted to the intensive care unit of a hospital in Manchester on Dec. 8, where he was intubated and put in an induced coma, according to a report on Spanish television.Mr. Marín had already had Covid-19 last year. After suffering the disease, he expressed in a video his relief, as well as hope that this would help protect him from another infection.“I’m lucky enough to be now immune, I’m taking great care of myself, I wear my mask, they will force us to get vaccinated and I hope things relax and they allow us to work,” he said in the video, posted last December. Mr. Marín was born in Rüsselsheim, a German city about 30 miles southwest of Frankfurt, on Oct. 13, 1968. At 8 years old, he released his first album. Later, he moved with his family to Madrid, where he went on to study piano and singing at the city’s Royal Conservatory.In 2003, Mr. Marín, known for his broad vocal register, joined Il Divo together with Urs Bühler, from Switzerland, David Miller from the United States and Sébastien Izambard from France. The quartert, known for their soupy, romantic covers, helped make popular the genre of pop opera, known as “popera,” and went on to sell millions of albums.“Singing is my way of saying what I feel, my way of life,” Mr. Marín is quoted as saying on the musical group’s website. Sometimes, he added, the music could make him feel melancholy and at other times; joyful.“Singing is what makes me feel alive,” Mr. Marín added. “So thank you.”Raphael Minder contributed reporting. More

Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Tina Turner and others have all sold rights to their music for eye-popping prices. Here’s why.In 1972, a struggling New Jersey musician hustled into Manhattan for an audition at Columbia Records, using an acoustic guitar borrowed from his former drummer.“I had to haul it ‘Midnight Cowboy’-style over my shoulder on the bus and through the streets of the city,” the rocker, Bruce Springsteen, later recalled in his memoirs.Half a century later, he can afford plenty of guitars. Last week Sony, which now owns Columbia, announced that it acquired Springsteen’s entire body of work — his recordings and his songwriting catalog — for what two people briefed on the deal said was about $550 million.The price, which may be the richest ever paid for the work of a single musician, caused jaws to drop throughout the music industry. But it was only the latest mega-transaction in a year in which many prominent artists’ catalogs have been sold, fetching eye-popping prices.The catalog market was already bubbling a year ago when Bob Dylan sold his songwriting rights for more than $300 million, but since then it has maintained a steady boil. The list of major artists who have recently sold their work, in full or in part, includes Paul Simon, Neil Young, Stevie Nicks, Tina Turner, Mötley Crüe, Shakira and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, many for eight-figure payouts or more. The industry is abuzz about impending deals for Sting and the songwriting catalog of David Bowie.“Almost everything now is transacting,” said Barry M. Massarsky, an economist who specializes in calculating the value of music catalogs on behalf of investors. “In the last year alone, we did 300 valuations worth over $6.5 billion,” he added.Not long ago, music was seen as a collapsing business, with rampant piracy and declining sales. No longer.Streaming and the global growth of subscription services like Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube have turned the industry’s fortunes around. One result is a spike in the pricing of catalogs of music rights to both recordings and to the songs themselves.Tina Turner sold her music rights to BMG earlier this year.Pierre Bessard/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNew investors, including private equity firms, have poured billions of dollars into the market, viewing music royalties as a kind of safe commodity — an investment, somewhat like real estate, with predictable rates of return and relatively low risk.For major music conglomerates like Sony and Universal, which bought Dylan’s songs, such deals help them consolidate power and gain negotiating leverage with streaming services and other tech companies, like social-media, exercise services or gaming platforms, that often make blanket deals to use music..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Despite the popularity of young acts like Drake and Dua Lipa, older material dominates online. According to MRC Data, a tracking service that powers the Billboard charts, about 66 percent of all music consumption — of which streaming is by far the largest part — is for material that is older than 18 months, and that number has been growing rapidly.And for artists, the sale can bring tax advantages. Royalties are typically taxed as ordinary income, while a catalog sale can qualify as capital gains, which typically have lower rates.Artists like Springsteen, 72, are part of the generation of music stars that, starting in the 1970s, first came to gain control of their work in large numbers, in ways that preceding generations did not.“A lot of artists were taken advantage of in the ’50s and ’60s,” said John Branca, Michael Jackson’s longtime lawyer, who is now one of the executors of Jackson’s estate. “With the emergence of better legal and management representation in the ’70s and ’80s, there was a push for the artists to obtain more power, more leverage, and ultimately to own their own work.”Many of those stars are now pulling the last lever of that control by deciding to sell, in numbers that were unthinkable even a decade ago, many executives and artists’ advisers say.The desire for control is now reflected in younger stars like Taylor Swift, who has campaigned in public about the importance of artists owning their work and criticized the marketplace in which catalogs of songs are bought and sold without the creators’ participation or approval. In Swift’s case, she has gone so far as to rerecord her own songs, in part to control the earnings from those tracks.“Part of the power of being an owner of your assets is that you get to decide when to cash out and how to cash out,” said Bill Werde, the director of Syracuse University’s Bandier Program on the music industry and a former editor of Billboard, the music trade publication.In general, selling out means giving up control, and buyers typically want to exploit assets fully to earn back their investment.Taylor Swift has spoken out about the importance of artists owning their catalogs.Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn Springsteen’s case, the negotiations for the Sony sale included discussions about limiting how his work could be used in the future, with particular concern about any ads featuring two of Springsteen’s most iconic songs, “Born in the U.S.A.” and “Born to Run,” according to three people briefed on the deal who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly about it.Throughout his career, Springsteen consistently refused to license his music for ads, though in February he made his first-ever commercial appearance in a Jeep ad for the Super Bowl, delivering a message about the need for a “common ground” in the United States. (The soundtrack was not one of Springsteen’s hit songs but an atmospheric score composed by Springsteen and Ron Aniello.)Representatives for Sony and Springsteen declined to comment on the terms of the deal.Springsteen, one of the most successful singer-songwriters in pop history, essentially made two deals with Sony. One was for his so-called master recordings, the sounds of his music as captured on albums and single tracks. The other, sometimes described as music publishing, is for his songwriting rights — the words, melodies and musical structure of the hundreds of songs he wrote. With both sets of rights, Sony will have full control over the future use and earnings of Springsteen’s music and lyrics, except for any restrictions that were part of the deal.According to an estimate by Billboard, Springsteen’s two catalogs of music — his recordings and songwriting — earn about $17 million a year, after costs.Many older artists see this as a good time to sell — while their music remains popular, and market conditions are favorable.But behind the scenes, there has often been vigorous debate among artists and their advisers about whether to sell. For many of the most astute players, a key question is not so much the price but who is offering it, as private equity players and other financial specialists — which sometimes buy catalogs outright and sometimes merely provide the financing for specialist companies — wade into the tricky waters of protecting artists’ legacies in a world of commerce.“What does an artist mean over half-century career,” said Jeff Jampol, who manages the estates of the Doors, Janis Joplin and other stars, “if all of a sudden those assets just disappear into the maw of some huge hedge fund that has no connection to art, music or legacy?”While headlines highlight those who have decided to sell, there have been some dissenters.Diane Warren, the songwriter of hits like Celine Dion’s “Because You Loved Me” and Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” told Rolling Stone that selling her catalog “would be like selling my soul.” When asked whether the Michael Jackson estate would consider selling Jackson’s rights, which may be worth well over $1 billion, Branca said, “I don’t think I would ever sell.”But as the prices rise, it may become harder for holdouts to resist. 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The rapper, whose real name was Darrell Caldwell, was to perform at a festival on Saturday night when he was fatally stabbed during an altercation, officials said.Drakeo the Ruler, a West Coast rapper known for his offbeat cadence and jerky rhythm, was fatally stabbed on Saturday night during an altercation at a Los Angeles festival where several artists were scheduled to perform. He was 28.A publicist for the rapper, Scott Jawson, confirmed his death on Sunday.Drakeo the Ruler, whose real name was Darrell Caldwell, was to perform at the festival, Once Upon a Time in L.A., at 8:30 p.m. local time.At about 8:40 p.m., paramedics responded to a call about a stabbing near the Banc of California Stadium in Exposition Park, where the festival was being held, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.The altercation happened in the “roadway backstage,” according to a statement from Once Upon a Time in L.A. Festival organizers ended the show early on Saturday night. Other artists scheduled to perform included 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg.The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating the stabbing. It was unclear on Sunday whether any arrests had been made.In February, Mr. Caldwell, who has garnered more than 1.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify, released his biggest album to date, “The Truth Hurts,” in which he raps in a nervous-sounding delivery about “everything that I have gone through,” including incarceration, he said in a statement promoting the album earlier this year.Born in Los Angeles and raised by a single mother, Mr. Caldwell has said in interviews that he spent much of his youth in correctional facilities. He thought of rap as a way to earn money and help his family.He told The Ringer in 2020 that his long-term aspirations were to be wealthy and “get my mom and everybody that I can take care of out of poverty.”“I’ve got to make sure that they’ll never have to want for nothing again,” he said. “I want to show people that no matter how hard the situation is, my story proves that anything is possible.”Mr. Caldwell pioneered “nervous music,” a subgenre of rap that sounds sinister and contains cryptic lyrics.In 2020, Mr. Caldwell released “Thank You for Using GTL,” an album that refers to GTL, a communications company used in some correctional facilities.The album had verses that Mr. Caldwell recorded over a phone while he was still in jail, awaiting trial in connection with the 2016 killing of a 24-year-old man, Mr. Jawson said. Mr. Caldwell was acquitted of felony murder and attempted murder charges in 2019.Los Angeles County prosecutors tried to retry Mr. Caldwell on conspiracy charges related to the killing, Mr. Jawson said. Mr. Caldwell agreed to a plea deal and was released in November 2020. Mr. Caldwell later insisted that he did not commit a crime related to the case.A month after being released, Mr. Jawson and Mr. Caldwell met for the first time.“He was very proud of doing everything on his own, on his own terms,” Mr. Jawson said. “He was an independent artist and took a lot of pride in his ability.”In the beginning of his career, he financed some of his music videos, uploaded his songs to streaming platforms and organized shows.It culminated in February when he released, “Talk to Me,” featuring a chorus from Drake, the chart-topping rapper and singer. The song has more than 30 million streams on Spotify.Mr. Caldwell told Rolling Stone in March that he wanted people to “take my music seriously and feel everything.”“I might talk a certain way or say certain things, but I’ve been through a lot in my life,” he said. “I want them to feel what I went through.” More

Trimmed and in English for family friendliness, Massenet’s opera arrives in a boldly stylized staging, starring Isabel Leonard.What is the difference between real life and dreams, especially for an insecure young person?That poignant question is at the core of Massenet’s 1899 opera “Cendrillon,” which opened on Friday at the Metropolitan Opera in English translation as “Cinderella” — a holiday offering trimmed to 95 minutes and aimed at families.In Laurent Pelly’s boldly stylized production of this adaptation of Perrault’s fairy tale, when we meet Cinderella (the affecting mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard) she is restless and forlorn. Wearing a raggedy dress and frumpy sweater, she is treated like a lowly servant by her imperious stepmother and snide stepsisters.Left alone to ponder her fate, Cinderella sings a wistful aria, music that suggests an old folk song, and allows herself a moment to dream. There must be someone who can rescue her; somewhere a loving soul mate is waiting. Leonard, who has excelled at the Met as Debussy’s Mélisande and in other major roles, does it meltingly.Cinderella’s rescuer, unfortunately, is not her father, Pandolfe (the bass-baritone Laurent Naouri). As we learn, Pandolfe was a widower living contentedly in the country with his beloved daughter when he foolishly married the energetic Madame de la Haltière, who already had two children. Soon she revealed herself as overbearing and ambitious. Pandolfe proves incapable of standing up to her and protecting his daughter.And who could stand up to this production’s Haltière, the mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe? With her powerful, deep-set voice and take-charge presence, Blythe is hilariously withering.The gleeful villains of “Cinderella”: Stephanie Blythe (center) as Madame de la Haltière, the evil stepmother, and her daughters, Maya Lahyani (left) as Dorothy and Jacqueline Echols as Naomie.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIn the bustling opening scene, she orders her fearful servants and obsequious milliners to create fancy gowns for her daughters to attend a royal ball; the king of the realm (the robust bass-baritone Michael Sumuel, in his Met debut) has decreed that the recalcitrant prince will finally choose a wife. Massenet’s music teems with rustling flourishes and pomp, vibrantly led by the conductor Emmanuel Villaume. Left behind, poor Cinderella curls up on the floor and falls asleep.But her longing to attend the ball has been heard by the Fairy Godmother (the bright-voiced coloratura soprano Jessica Pratt), who arrives with spirit-helpers — a dancing chorus of women dressed eerily like Cinderella, who wakes up draped in silver-cream and is taken to the palace in a horse-drawn carriage. Is it all a dream?What comes through in Massenet’s telling, elegantly rendered in this performance, is that Prince Charming (Emily D’Angelo, a rich-voiced mezzo) is also a dreamer. We first see him looking miserable in his red pajamas, dreading the ball and his responsibilities.From left: Jessica Pratt as the Fairy Godmother, Leonard as Cinderella and Emily D’Angelo as Prince Charming in “Cinderella.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesDuring a faux-courtly, tartly comic choral scene, a parade of eligible women in outrageous outfits — Pelly also designed the costumes — appear before the sullen prince, who can barely respond. Then, in a vision, Cinderella arrives. As their silent glances turn into lyrical exchanges, beautifully sung by Leonard and D’Angelo, these young people truly seem like the answers to one another’s dreams.And so the familiar tale unfolds: the glass slipper that falls off Cinderella’s foot as she rushes away at midnight; the prince’s relentless search to find its owner; and the joyous outcome when their dream of love becomes reality.The production is a delight, with lines from Perrault’s fairy tale written all over Barbara de Limburg’s set and Laura Scozzi’s choreography a deft blend of sleek moves and silliness. The cast (including Jacqueline Echols and Maya Lahyani as the stepsisters) could hardly be better. It is an apt companion for the Met’s other family fare for the holidays: Mozart’s “Magic Flute,” which opened last week.CinderellaThrough Jan. 3 at the Metropolitan Opera, Manhattan; metopera.org. More

As a member of the group UTFO, he was heard on one of the most influential and widely imitated songs of commercial hip-hop’s early years.Kangol Kid, who as a rapper in the group UTFO was a key contributor to the 1984 single “Roxanne, Roxanne,” one of the most influential and widely imitated songs of commercial hip-hop’s early years, died on Saturday morning at a hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., on Long Island. He was 55.The cause was complications of colon cancer, said Lion Lindwedel, his publicist.“Roxanne, Roxanne,” released on Select Records, was the 1984 equivalent of a viral hit. It sold a few hundred thousand copies and went to No. 10 on the Billboard R&B singles chart and No. 77 on the Hot 100, but its influence was far vaster than statistics could capture.The song was written from the perspective of three men getting shut down by the same woman, the elusive (and imaginary) Roxanne. Kangol Kid opened the song memorably:She wouldn’t give a guy like me no rapShe was walking down the street so I said “HelloI’m Kangol from UTFO.” And she said “So?”And I said “So? Baby don’t you know?I can sing, rap and dance in just one show’Cause I’m Kangol, Mr. SophisticatorAs far as I’m concerned, ain’t nobody greater.”“Roxanne, Roxanne” was produced by the group Full Force and based on a sample of “The Big Beat” by the rocker Billy Squier, which the producer Howie Tee had brought to the group. It spawned more than two dozen answer tracks and retorts, many by female rappers, most notably “The Real Roxanne” by the Real Roxanne (also produced by Full Force) and Roxanne Shante’s “Roxanne’s Revenge.”. At the height of the Roxanne song wars, UTFO and the Real Roxanne would share concert bills.It was a cultural zeitgeist song that reached across the country. When Dr. Dre began working with Ice Cube, he urged him to perform a version of the song at clubs to help generate crowd excitement. Ice Cube’s take was called “Diane, Diane.”Kangol Kid — sometimes called the Kangol Kid — was born Shaun Shiller Fequiere in Brooklyn on Aug. 10, 1966, and grew up in the East Flatbush neighborhood. His father, Andre, was a taxi driver; his mother, Jean, was a housekeeper at a hospital.Kangol Kid started off as a B-boy, or breakdancer; he and a neighborhood friend, Doctor Ice, were known as the Keystone Dancers, and they toured with the early-1980s rap group Whodini, including on the New York City Fresh Fest tour, and with Full Force. They appeared on Phil Donahue’s talk show and were invited to dance at a birthday party for Dustin Hoffman’s daughter.He received his nickname before he achieved fame because he was known for wearing Kangol hats, and he ended up being sponsored by the company — one of hip-hop’s earliest brand partnerships. (The arrangement spanned his entire life; long after his initial success, the company provided him gratis product.)Formed in Brooklyn, UTFO (sometimes rendered as U.T.F.O., it stands for Untouchable Force Organization) was a foursome: Kangol Kid, Doctor Ice, the Educated Rapper and the D.J. Mix Master Ice. The group occasionally referred to itself as the “Village People of rap” because of its members’ distinct visual identities.UTFO onstage in Chicago in 1988 (from left, the Educated Rapper, Kangol Kid, Mix Master Ice and Doctor Ice). The group’s “Roxanne, Roxanne” spawned more than two dozen answer tracks and retorts. Raymond Boyd/Getty ImagesIn David Toop’s essential early-rap history book, “The Rap Attack” (1985), Kangol Kid explained one of his lyrical innovations: “Another new thing is Z-rap. It’d be like a code language. I would talk to him and his name’s Doctor Ice. I would say, ‘Dizoctor Izice. Yizo hizo bizoy wizon’t youza kizoy mesover herezere?’ — that’s just saying, ‘Yo, homeboy, why don’t you come over here?’ and what I did is make a rap out of that language.” It was a style he deployed on “Roxanne, Roxanne,” and it anticipated the later linguistic zigzagging of E-40, Snoop Dogg and others.In 1985 UTFO released its debut album, called simply “UTFO,” which continued the Roxanne saga with “Calling Her a Crab.” In a 1985 concert review, Jon Pareles of The New York Times praised the group for its “syncopated, overlapping patter” and “spitfire delivery.”UTFO would go on to release four more albums, and became popular enough for their own slot on the Fresh Fest tour, a road show that was then an index of hip-hop’s growing popularity. In 1985, UTFO performed at the Apollo Theater, believed to be a first for a rap group. In 1987, they collaborated with the heavy metal band Anthrax.After UTFO’s run in the spotlight, Kangol Kid wrote and produced for other artists, including the group Whistle and the baseball star Darryl Strawberry, who recorded a novelty rap song, “Chocolate Strawberry.” He did voice-over work and wrote a music-industry advice column, first for Black Beat magazine and then for AllHiphop.com.In the last decade, Kangol Kid was actively involved with cancer charities. In 2012 he was honored by the American Cancer Society for his fund-raising efforts as co-founder of the Mama Luke Foundation. He was diagnosed with colon cancer in February.He is survived by his parents; three brothers, Joel, Andy and Alix (all memorably name-checked on UTFO’s “Lisa Lips”); three sons, T.Shaun, Andre and Giovanni; a daughter, Amancia; and seven grandchildren. More

As music director for CKLW, a major radio station in the Detroit market, she furthered the careers of Alice Cooper, Bob Seger, the Temptations and many others.Whatever story you have about the high point of your junior high school years, Tim Trombley has a better one. The rocker Alice Cooper once picked him up at his school in a limousine to take him to lunch.That was one of the perks of having Rosalie Trombley for a mother.From 1967 into the early 1980s, Ms. Trombley was the music director for CKLW-AM, a radio station based in Windsor, Ontario, with a signal so powerful that it was heard in dozens of states in the U.S., dominating the markets of Detroit and other Midwestern cities in the days before the emergence of FM. A 1971 headline in The Detroit Free Press called her “The Most Powerful Lady in Pop Music,” because her tastes went a long way toward determining what was played on the station, which in turn went a long way toward determining what was played in the rest of North America.Sometimes, Mr. Trombley related in a phone interview, his mother would bring demo records home, and he would be allowed to play them. She noticed that he was playing one quite a lot: Mr. Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen.”“She made it known to the label, to Warner Bros., ‘Tim has been playing this song over and over,’” Mr. Trombley said, and she slipped it into CKLW’s rotation. In late 1970 it became Mr. Cooper’s breakout hit. And so Mr. Cooper, a Detroit native, took young Tim to lunch one day as a thank-you.“I knew that mom had a really cool job,” Mr. Trombley said.Ms. Trombley died on Nov. 23 at a long-term care center in Leamington, Ontario, where she had been living for some time. She was 82. Mr. Trombley said the cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease.Ms. Trombley seemed an unlikely starmaker. She was a single mother of three when she started at CKLW as a part-time switchboard operator. The Free Press once wrote that she “looks like Doris Day’s next-door neighbor.” But she was, as newspapers often described her, “the lady with the golden ear” who, with her no-nonsense demeanor, could hold her own in the male-dominated music business of the day.The list of stars who owed her a debt of gratitude was long.“You’d come in in the morning,” Keith Radford, a former newsman at the station, said in an interview for a video series produced by Radio Trailblazers, an organization promoting women in Canadian radio, “and there’d be big bouquets of flowers at the front desk, from Elton John or the Rolling Stones.”Ms. Trombley would hold court on Thursdays for record promoters who hoped to get their new songs onto CKLW’s “Big 30” playlist.“If they wanted the record really bad, they would bring the act with them,” Johnny Williams, a former D.J., said in the video. “So it wasn’t unusual every Thursday to see the Four Tops, the Temptations, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder, Sammy Davis Jr.”One artist who made such a pilgrimage was Tony Orlando, who in the video recalled that Ms. Trombley had heard him out that day and offered him an invitation.“Rosalie said, ‘I’ll tell you what: If your next record comes within the ballpark of a commercial record, a playable Top 40 record, because you took the time to come here — but only if it has the goods — I’ll give it consideration big time,’” he said. “And that next record was ‘Yellow Ribbon’” — that is, Tony Orlando and Dawn’s “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ’Round the Ole Oak Tree,” the top-selling record of 1973. “And she was the first to put it on the air.”Ms. Trombley with the singer-songwriter Bob Seger holding gold record plaques for his 1978 album, “Stranger in Town.” “Seger never had any problem getting on CKLW,” she said. Detroit Free PressRosalie Helen Gillan was born on Sept. 18, 1939, in Leamington. Her father, Shell, was a general foreman at the Ford Motor Company of Canada, and her mother, Katherine Piper, was a switchboard operator.After graduating from high school, she worked at Bell Canada for a time. She married Clayton Trombley in 1958. She took the switchboard job at CKLW in late 1962, working in that capacity for several years and, as The Vancouver Sun put it in a 1973 article about her, “inadvertently picking up the politics of the music business simply by learning to handle sometimes troublesome record-promotion people who arrived at the station to ply their wares.”Around 1968, Ms. Trombley and her husband separated (they later divorced), and at about the same time she was offered the chance to take over for the station’s record librarian, who was going on maternity leave. The station’s program director soon took note of her ear for hits and made her music director, a job she held, Tim Trombley said, until she was laid off in the early 1980s in a downsizing effort.Ms. Trombley didn’t rely only on her own tastes; she would call R&B stations in the area to see what they were playing, which led her to give CKLW’s 50,000 watts of exposure to Black artists. She similarly boosted the careers of Canadian artists like Gordon Lightfoot and the Guess Who, as well as a number of Detroit-area stars, including Bob Seger.“Seger never had any problem getting on CKLW,” she told The Detroit Free Press in 2004 when Mr. Seger was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. “Look at the songs. Listen to the lyrics. I’m a lyric freak. When someone is saying something in a song, I can’t be the only person interested in it.”Well, Mr. Seger almost never had any problem getting on the station. Some of his new material came her way in the early 1970s, and she panned it. He sat down and wrote a song about her, called “Rosalie,” that had a winking snide streak.“He was pissed off when he wrote that song about me,” she said. “He told me!”Payola — offering payoffs to get a song played — was part of the radio business during Ms. Trombley’s reign, and her son said it was common knowledge in the industry that she was a single mother, so some promoters would make it subtly known to her that there was money available.“She made it less subtly known,” he said, “that if they wanted to continue to meet with her every week, that was not something that was going to get their record on the radio.”She had her musical favorites, especially Neil Diamond. But that didn’t necessarily win him radio time.“I’m not playing his current release,” she told The Sun in 1973, tactfully not naming it, “because it looks like a midchart record, and I won’t go with it when I know out front that it’s only midchart.”In addition to her son Tim, she is survived by another son, Todd; a daughter, Diane Lauzon; and a grandson.In 2016 Ms. Trombley received a special Juno Award, the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy. Radio Trailblazers has an annual award recognizing women who have “blazed new trails in radio.” She received the first, in 2005, and it is now called simply the Rosalie Award. More

Hear tracks by FKA twigs and the Weeknd, Leon Bridges and Khruangbin, Animal Collective 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 [email protected] and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Cécile McLorin Salvant, ‘Thunderclouds’The headline here isn’t that the cream-of-the-crop jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant has serious creative appetites that run beyond the American-songbook-and-curios repertory, which she has so famously explored. That was becoming clear, slowly but surely, over the past few years. It’s that when she focuses instead on her own writing, and shifts away some from straight-on modern jazz, she also softens the archness and the neatness of her delivery. There’s a new, expanded range in both the music and the expression. “Thunderclouds” will help you clock the shift: an up-tempo lullaby of wistful, wounded hopefulness, its shapely chord changes carried loosely by the band and its bouncy rhythm nodding to Caribbean-infused jazz. “Sometimes you have to gaze into a well to see the sky,” Salvant sings, repeating the phrase as if to convince herself. The song comes from a forthcoming album, “Ghost Song,” due in March; it’ll be her first for Nonesuch Records and her first to feature primarily originals. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOLeon Bridges and Khruangbin, ‘B-Side’In a Texas alliance, the soul singer Leon Bridges is backed by Khruangbin, a trio from Houston that has soaked up global rhythms. “B-Side” is from a collaborative EP due in February. Khruangbin supplies mid-tempo, two-chord Afrobeat funk, with terse bits of rhythm guitar answered by tootling organ chords, as Bridges croons in falsetto about much he misses a distant lover. It sounds like a slice of a jam that went on much longer. JON PARELESAnimal Collective, ‘Walker’Plinking, cascading xylophone and marimba sounds and the nasal, pumping string tones of a hurdy-gurdy circle through “Walker,” a meditation on getting through grief that’s named after the songwriter Scott Walker. It’s less dizzying and more patient than much of Animal Collective’s catalog, and for its final minute, only plinks and stray words remain, like shards of mourning. PARELESTierra Whack, ‘Sorry’The high-concept miniaturist Tierra Whack has been releasing a series of three-song genre-testing EPs: “Pop?,” “Rap?” and now “R&B?,” which relies on slow-ticking drum machines and electronic tones. “Sorry” is cast as a phone message, “one last conversation” with someone who won’t answer. The synthesizer chords are frayed and quivery as her apologies tumble out — heartfelt but apparently too late. PARELESFKA twigs featuring the Weeknd, ‘Tears in the Club’Miserablism and sensualism pair elegantly in this collaboration between FKA twigs and the Weeknd. For twigs, an impressionistic singer, this marks her most pointed and theatrical vocals, and the Weeknd, who has long embraced deviant sadness on a grand scale, dials it back ever so slightly to match the beatifically aghast mood. JON CARAMANICARvssian and Future featuring Lil Baby, ‘M&M’On “M&M,” the Jamaican producer Rvssian serves up an ominous synth that sounds like a video game console on its last legs, tinny and fading. Lil Baby matches it with a needling singsong verse, and Future approaches it with an indignant wheeze. CARAMANICATyondai Braxton, ‘Dia’Tyondai Braxton’s new electronic track, “Dia,” emerges after a long silence. It has an insistent but implied beat, many layers of overt and implied syncopation, and a determination to keep changing. PARELES24kGoldn, ‘More Than Friends’Around 14 months ago, 24kGoldn was at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with his breakout single “Mood.” Now he’s remaking Biz Markie’s “Just a Friend.” It’s a cheeky success that feels like a grim concession. CARAMANICA More

Glamorous opening nights came with “Macbeth,” “Falstaff” and “Otello” — as well as a new version of “Julius Caesar.”“Ah, Shakespeare, Shakespeare!” exclaimed Giuseppe Verdi in 1872. “The great maestro of the human heart.”Twenty-five years before, as a young man, Verdi had set “Macbeth,” and his final two operas to come, the fruits of his old age, would be “Otello,” in 1887, and “Falstaff,” in 1893, as he turned 80. He contemplated settings of “Hamlet” and “King Lear.” Germans sometimes label Mozart the Shakespeare of music, but no composer cared about this playwright more than Verdi. And Italian opera companies, now opening their seasons under stressful pandemic conditions, are looking to these works for the cathartic secrets of the heart.There were glittering opening nights recently at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, with an “Otello” starring Jonas Kaufmann, and at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, with “Macbeth” and Anna Netrebko. In Florence, John Eliot Gardiner conducted a new production of “Falstaff,” and the Rome Opera presented a world-premiere setting of “Julius Caesar,” composed by Giorgio Battistelli. (The trend isn’t confined to Italy: A recent adaptation of “Hamlet,” by the Australian composer Brett Dean, will come to the Metropolitan Opera in May.)Gardiner is an early-music specialist, and he approaches Verdi with the Renaissance of Shakespeare and Monteverdi in mind, emphasizing lightness, clarity and agility. In an interview he said that Monteverdi created the model for through-composed operas (like “Falstaff”) that blur the distinction between aria and declamation, using the music to underline the text, and exploring — like Shakespeare, Monteverdi’s contemporary — the full dimensions of the human condition.Falstaff’s declamations were magnificently delivered by the baritone Nicola Alaimo: In the first act the clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets joined with him in saluting his splendid belly. Gardiner presided over the delicate nocturnal tones of the final scene, which began with a hint of early music: a musician alone onstage playing a valveless horn.Nicola Alaimo, center, in the title role of Verdi’s “Falstaff” in Florence, with Antonio Garés, left, and Gianluca Buratto.Michele MonastaThe theatrical genius of Shakespeare often nests a play within the play, and Verdi captures this brilliantly in “Otello” and “Falstaff,” both with librettos by Arrigo Boito. In “Falstaff” the tricking and trapping of the libertine knight is masterminded by Alice Ford, one of the merry wives of Windsor — sung in Florence with lovely vivacity by the soprano Ailyn Pérez.In “Otello” the nested play is “staged” by Iago — instilling and amplifying jealousy — and on a night when many had come to hear Kaufmann as the tormented hero, the young Russian baritone Igor Golovatenko was hypnotically compelling as the villain. (Victor Maurel created both Iago and Falstaff, and Verdi required him to declaim, musically, in Shakespearean fashion — in Iago’s nihilist “Credo,” as in Falstaff’s mockery of honor.)In Naples, the conductor Michele Mariotti seemed to sing — or at least mouth — every word along with his singers, presiding over a subtle performance of many moods and colorings. Since 2017 Kaufmann has been singing Otello, Verdi’s most challenging dramatic tenor role, and it suits him beautifully: the heroic moments that draw on his Wagnerian forcefulness, and the anguished lyricism and modulated dynamics that have always been features of his artistry.He performed with silvery gray hair, a visibly aging titan. Desdemona was the soprano Maria Agresta, capable of exquisite grace but also dramatic urgency. Mario Martone’s production, set in a contemporary military encampment, put Desdemona in soldier’s fatigues, and even had her pulling a gun on Otello in an inevitably unsuccessful attempt to defend her life.A new production of “Otello” in Naples, starring Jonas Kaufmann, was set amid ancient ruins in a contemporary military encampment.Luciano RomanoVerdi’s Shakespeare is so important to Italian operatic culture that it was bold indeed for the Rome Opera to open with Battistelli’s “Julius Caesar.” Robert Carsen’s production presented Roman statesmen in modern suits, and the ancient Senate was represented by an auditorium resembling the Italian Parliament. The English-language libretto (by Ian Burton) used Shakespeare’s words, and Battistelli said in an interview that he listened carefully to the syllabification of the English verse before composing the music.Influenced by atonal composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez, Battistelli even makes use of Schoenbergian Sprechgesang — suspended between singing and speech — for the delivery of some of the text. The great speeches of Brutus and Mark Antony at Caesar’s funeral were addressed to the chorus, which responded with volatile moods: aroused, becalmed, confused, manipulated. Battistelli said he sees his opera as relevant for understanding populist and authoritarian presences in politics today; in Rome, the audience looks up at an inscription over the proscenium acknowledging Benito Mussolini’s help in restoring the opera house in 1928.Battistelli makes use of an extended percussion section — located in one of the side boxes above the orchestra — to establish an unsettling mood: the tam-tam and snare drum, bells and glockenspiel, bongos and marimba, cymbals and gongs. The score, conducted with great commitment by Daniele Gatti, creates a sense of uncanniness and suspense that also evokes cinematic music. Diverging from Shakespeare, the opera offers a large musical role to the ghost of Caesar, who, returning to the stage in the concluding act — like the Commendatore in “Don Giovanni” — actively participates in the suicides of his assassins.Clive Bayley, with hands up, plays the title role in a new “Julius Caesar,” staged to evoke today’s Italian Parliament.Fabrizio Sansoni/Teatro dell’Opera di Roma“I want Lady Macbeth ugly and bad,” Verdi once said, adding that even her voice should be not altogether beautiful, but “harsh, stifled and dark.” At La Scala, however, Netrebko offered an undeniably glamorous sound and presence, her lower and middle registers more gorgeous than ever, and her top notes emerging with thrilling beauty. The baritone Luca Salsi was extraordinary in the challenging title role, with its whispered introspection and agonized exclamations, while the conductor, Riccardo Chailly, conjured the dark orchestral moods of Verdi’s first Shakespearean masterpiece.Salsi’s Macbeth suffers spiritually, almost from the start, singing on his knees in the great duet that follows the murder of Duncan, while Netrebko was at her most haunting in the sinister waltz rhythm of “La luce langue,” dismissing the dead in a nihilistic spirit as dark as Iago’s.In Davide Livermore’s production, the Macbeths live in a rotating penthouse that looks out on a skyscraper city projected as if in an urban fantasy video game. The opera begins with Macbeth and Banquo performing a gangster execution during the prelude; they then encounter the witches in an underground parking garage before ascending (while singing their duet) in the building elevator. Netrebko soon steps into the same elevator during her mesmerizing summoning of dark spirits.The cast was acclaimed by the audience. But the biggest ovation of the night came before the opera began, when the country’s president, Sergio Mattarella, entered his box. The audience cheered for a full six minutes, with cries of “bis” — which usually means “encore” at the opera, but was here a call on the president to consider a second term.Mattarella has been a well-loved leader through the pandemic, which reached Italy before the rest of Europe in February 2020, and struck Milan hard. There was no opening night for La Scala last year, so this year’s was a gesture of faith in the future.When the last act began with the hushed chorus “Patria oppressa” — a grim reaction to Macbeth’s oppressive rule — it was hard not to think of the tragedies of the past two years. With the opening of new opera seasons, the carefully masked and vaccinated Italian public has taken a tentative step toward normal life. At the end of “Falstaff,” Alice Ford tells her co-conspirators that when the farce in the woods is finished, “ci smaschereremo” — “we will unmask” — to come together in a spirit of final celebration.They do — and we will, too. But not quite yet.Larry Wolff is a professor of European history at New York University and the author of “The Singing Turk: Ottoman Power and Operatic Emotions on the European Stage.” More