Music

James Lapine’s book shows how he and Stephen Sondheim invested two years of work to burnish their musical from an avant-garde near-disaster to a mainstream classic.As someone then working in a menial capacity on musicals, I was lucky enough to see the original production of James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park With George” several times: once during its ragged, unfinished Off Broadway workshop at Playwrights Horizons in 1983 and repeatedly during its gleamingly polished Broadway run at the Booth Theater starting the next year. Either way, I thought it was a work of beauty and genius, especially after getting to study the music up close as I proofread parts of the score for the show’s copyist. What I didn’t know was how close, and how often, “Sunday” had come to not working at all.In “Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created ‘Sunday in the Park With George,’” Lapine, who directed and wrote the book for the show, relates the history of the work through memories, memorabilia and interviews with more than 50 people connected with it. They include Sondheim, of course, but also the original stars (Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters), ensemble members (including the as-yet-unknown Kelsey Grammer, Brent Spiner and Christine Baranski), producers, designers, stage managers and grunts.The composer Stephen Sondheim, right, was collaborating for the first time with James Lapine, left, who wrote the book and directed “Sunday in the Park With George.”Gerry GoodsteinFar from being a nostalgic ego trip, though, Lapine’s book is astonishingly frank about the show’s troubles and his own shortcomings. His background in experimental theater was central to the new work’s innovations but did not prepare him, especially as a novice director, for the mainstream pressures that inevitably came to bear once Sondheim was involved, even if Sondheim himself was trying to escape them.That division is recapitulated in the plot, which in the first act concerns the pointillist painter Georges Seurat, his fictional lover, Dot, and the creation of his masterpiece, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.” In the second act, it leaps ahead 100 years to focus on a contemporary artist who might be the couple’s great-grandson. Some audiences were unwilling to make that leap. Even Emanuel Azenberg, one of the show’s commercial producers, found it “intimidating and baffling.”The same phrase applies to the many personality clashes, technical problems and existential threats that seemed to pop up constantly during the show’s development. So even as Lapine traces the painstaking process of creating and directing something fundamentally new, he also reveals the role of chance and adversity in the making of a musical that’s now considered a classic.The unexpected flip side of that insight is the realization that even the greatest works, as they come together, are always just a few decisions shy of coming apart.Below, a timeline, with quotations from the book (out on Aug. 3), of the portents, miscalculations and disasters that over the course of two years led — utterly unpredictably — from the postcard of the painting that Lapine first showed Sondheim to a musical that may be, as one lyric puts it, “durable forever.”June 12, 1982With Sondheim, 52, in “a pretty dark place” after the failure of “Merrily We Roll Along” in 1981 — he’s considering giving up theater to make video games — Lapine, 33, a downtown up-and-comer, anxiously heads to their first meeting “through a huge antinuclear march that seemed to have taken over the city.” As the two men share a joint and talk, Lapine realizes they come from different artistic worlds; he has seen only one of Sondheim’s shows — “Sweeney Todd” — and has the thinnest possible knowledge of musical theater in general.Sondheim’s indication in Lapine’s script of where the opening number should go in “Sunday in the Park.”via Stephen SondheimSeptember 1982Sondheim, who typically begins by looking for places to put songs in the book writer’s text, finds one in Lapine’s first pages, as Dot poses for Seurat on a hot Sunday. Lapine expands the moment into a monologue beginning with the words “First a dribble of sweat,” but Sondheim thinks: “Dribble — I can’t do dribble.” He changes it to “trickle.” A good start, yet Lapine waits so long to hear the result, or any result, that he begins to fear Sondheim will leave him “at the altar.” The delay is in part the result of Sondheim’s fundamental concern: “I didn’t think the show needed songs.”Nov. 1, 1982At the first reading of the first act, Sondheim plays the entire score so far, which consists of four arpeggios — about 10 seconds of music.Early 1983The Off Broadway workshop at Playwrights Horizons has been financed mostly by grants and “wealthy widows,” says André Bishop, the theater’s artistic director. But at least one isn’t on board. Dorothy Rodgers, the widow of Richard Rodgers and an éminence grise in New York State arts funding, argues that Sondheim, as a “commercial” composer, doesn’t merit public funds. Bishop recalls writing to her: “If you think this musical that is barely half-written, about a pointillist painter, is commercial, you’ve got to be nuts!” Instead of cutting funding, he adds, “what I think you should do is get down on your knees and kiss my feet.” Rodgers replies: “Dear André. Point taken.”April 1983Lapine receives a letter from Edward Kleban, the lyricist of “A Chorus Line,” suggesting that “Sunday,” as yet unperformed, appropriates elements of Kleban’s unproduced musical “Gallery.” The implied threat of a lawsuit hovers all the way to Broadway, as does Kleban, seen scribbling notes during previews, but a suit never materializes.May 31, 1983On the first day of rehearsal, Peters gets an emergency call: “Your father is sick.” But it’s just her stalker. Other problems are not so easily dismissed. One cast member quits after a week, and several who remain resist what they call Lapine’s “sophomoric” theater games and directing style. Spiner, who plays a chauffeur, complains, “I don’t have a character. Where is my character?” When Lapine answers, “You’re not a character, you’re a color,” Spiner retorts: “Would you mind telling me what color?”Mandy Patinkin as Georges Seurat and Bernadette Peters as his fictional love, Dot, in the Broadway production.Martha Swope, via The New York Public Library for the Performing ArtsJuly 1983Patinkin, later describing himself as “terrified” by the demands of the role, storms out of the theater during the first week of performances at Playwrights, with Lapine chasing him down 42nd Street. Though Patinkin’s wife and agent talk him out of quitting, Lapine isn’t sure he’ll ever trust his leading man again. But trust is a problem all around. After Lapine confuses upstage and downstage and gives inappropriately harsh notes, Grammer, who plays several small roles, reams the director out in front of the company.Late July 1983Near the end of previews, Sondheim finishes “Finishing the Hat,” a song for Seurat that makes the first act gel. Not gelling: the skeletal second act hastily added for the final three performances at Playwrights, introducing the contemporary George as a wacky performance artist. Audiences are mystified, as is Sondheim: “It was really terrible.”Fall 1983To everyone’s surprise, the Shubert Organization decides to produce the unfinished, highbrow show in one of its Broadway theaters by the end of the new season; Lapine selects the Booth, nearly the smallest and thus the least financially feasible option. (The pit is so small that the bass drum has to be sliced in half to fit.) Patinkin almost decamps to play one of the sons in the Dustin Hoffman “Death of a Salesman.” Peters does not immediately sign on for Broadway either, noting that Dot still lacks a major moment in the first act like George’s “Finishing the Hat.” (This isn’t narcissism; she has already declined top billing, pointing out that the show is called “Sunday in the Park With George” — not Dot.) Sondheim, agreeing, fills the emotional gap with “We Do Not Belong Together.”The poster for the Broadway production, which played the small Booth Theater.1984 Fraver April 2, 1984At the first Broadway preview, Lapine writes, the theater is “sweltering” and the first act runs an hour and 40 minutes. “Many people walked out at intermission and more during the second act. By the end of the show, people were so desperate to get out of the theater that if I’d stood in their way, I’d have been trampled.” The crew, who call the show “Sunday in the Dark and Bored,” think it will close on opening night — or maybe before; they joke about kidnapping Patinkin and dumping him “in the middle of the Bronx.”Later that AprilA big technical problem during previews is Dot’s trick dress, which she must step out of during the title song as if it were an exoskeleton. The Off Broadway dress was problematic enough, but the fancier Broadway version, operated by a stage manager with a garage-door opener, is even buggier. The shell does not always open, forcing Peters to fight her way out of it manually, using the “emergency exit.” On one occasion, the opposite happens: The dress suddenly shuts before Peters can get back inside; she grabs it under her arm and walks off with it, getting a huge, unintended laugh.A costume rendering of the trick dress worn by the character Dot and controlled with a garage-door remote.Patricia Zipprodt, via Billy Rose Theatre Division/The New York Public Library for the Performing ArtsEven later that AprilWith two crucial second act songs still unwritten, the opening night is postponed by two weeks and Michael Bennett, an in-demand play doctor ever since he staged “A Chorus Line,” is brought in for advice. But there are also improvements and good omens. The first act has been cut down to 75 or 80 minutes and more people (even Johnny Cash!) are staying through the second. In the week before opening, when Sondheim finally finishes the last two songs — “Children and Art,” which Lapine says “explained the show,” and “Lesson #8,” which “explained George” — the contemporary story suddenly hangs together, even though the songs aren’t yet orchestrated.May 2, 1984“Sunday in the Park With George” opens to mixed reviews, is nominated for 10 Tony Awards (nabbing only two) but runs for 604 performances and, in April 1985, wins the Pulitzer Prize.On April 24, 1985, from left, Sondheim, Peters and Lapine celebrate the news that the show has won the Pulitzer Prize for drama.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times More

LL Cool J, Elvis Costello, Andrea Bocelli, Carlos Santana and the New York Philharmonic will join Bruce Springsteen in performances Aug. 21 on the Great Lawn.LL Cool J, Elvis Costello, Andrea Bocelli, Carlos Santana and the New York Philharmonic will join Bruce Springsteen and other artists next month at the starry Central Park concert that the city is planning to herald its comeback from the pandemic, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday.The mayor said that concertgoers would need to show proof of vaccination.Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York announced that next month there will be a concert in Central Park to celebrate the city’s recovery from the coronavirus, with performances from LL Cool J, Elvis Costello and Bruce Springsteen.“We want this to be a concert for the people,” Mr. de Blasio said at a video news conference, announcing more of the headliners — and the name — of the event, “We Love NYC: The Homecoming Concert,” which will be held on the Great Lawn on Aug. 21. “But I also want to be clear: It has to be a safe concert. It has to be a concert that helps us keep moving forward our recovery.”“So, if you want to go to this concert, you need to show proof of vaccination,” he added.The lineup features artists and musical icons from a number of eras, genres and styles, including the Killers; Earth, Wind & Fire; Wyclef Jean; Barry Manilow, and the previously announced performers, including Paul Simon, Jennifer Hudson and Patti Smith.While 80 percent of the tickets will be free, proof of vaccination will be required to attend. (Reasonable accommodation would be provided for those unable to get vaccinated because of a disability, the city said in a news release.) Masks will be optional, given the vaccination requirement and the fact that it is being held outdoors.Free tickets will be released to the public in batches at nyc.gov/HomecomingWeek beginning Monday at 10 a.m. Others will be available for purchase Monday.Gates will open for the concert, which is being produced in partnership with Live Nation, at 3 p.m. on Aug. 21, and the show will start at 5 p.m. CNN will also air the event live worldwide, including on CNN en Español.The venerable music producer Clive Davis, a Brooklyn native, has been working on the concert since May. He has lived almost his whole life in New York, he said at the news conference, but has never witnessed anything like the events of the past year and a half.“As a born, bred and true New Yorker, I well know how resilient we are, and how New York always comes back,” Mr. Davis said. “And yes, ladies and gentlemen, we are coming back. And I cannot think, really, of a more appropriate way to celebrate this than an unforgettable concert in the most special venue in the world: the Great Lawn at Central Park.” More

The festival, which runs from Aug. 11 to Sept. 5, features a flurry of music, dance, and comedy performances from both established and emerging artists.Little Island was dreamed up as a haven for the performing arts on the Hudson River, and in its first months, it is also being put forward as a playground for artists who have been kept from the stage for far too long.The operators of the island announced on Tuesday that it would host a free monthlong arts festival starting in mid-August that would feature more than 450 artists in more than 160 performances.There will be dance, including works curated by Misty Copeland, Robert Garland and Georgina Pazcoguin. There will be music, including the pianists Jenny Lin and Adam Tendler, the composer Tyshawn Sorey and the saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin and her band. And there will be live comedy, with television stars like Ziwe and Bowen Yang in the lineup.The festival — which is being produced by Mikki Shepard, formerly the executive producer of the Apollo Theater — is another major effort by New York’s performing arts community to revive the arts after the pandemic darkened theaters and concert halls for over a year. For the performers, it is an opportunity to get paid to create new work and explore where their art is heading after months of pandemic restrictions, and in the wake of racial justice protests that swept the country.“We wanted artists to have a voice in terms of, where are they now?” Shepard said. “Coming out of this pandemic, where do they want to be?”By offering free performances, the festival’s objective is to host an audience that combines typical arts patrons with people who might not normally buy tickets to see live music or dance. The performances in Little Island’s 687-seat amphitheater will be ticketed, but shows located elsewhere on the island will not be, allowing tourists and other park visitors to stumble upon them as they’re walking around the 2.4-acre space.“Nothing about it is refined,” said George C. Wolfe, a senior adviser working on the festival, which is called NYC Free. “It’s to give people a place to play.”Copeland and Garland are co-curating a performance on Aug. 18 that features eight Black ballet dancers from three major companies: American Ballet Theater, New York City Ballet and the Dance Theater of Harlem, where Garland is resident choreographer. During the performance, Copeland will read aloud from American history texts on top of hip-hop, soul and funk music.Other dance performances include Ballet Hispánico performing an evening of new works by Latina choreographers on Aug. 18, an evening of dance curated by the choreographer Ronald K. Brown on Aug. 25 and a performance by the tap dancer Dormeshia on Sept. 1.As for music, the first day of the festival on Aug. 11 will feature John Cage’s work “4’33”” — in which the score instructs that no instruments be played. It will be performed by students of the Third Street Music School Settlement, led by Tendler. Other musicians include the jazz duo Cécile McLorin Salvant and Sullivan Fortner; Flor de Toloache, an all-women mariachi band; and Ali Stroker, the Tony-winning “Oklahoma!” performer, who will sing and tell stories onstage. The final night of the festival includes an all-women jazz performance, curated by the drummer and composer Shirazette Tinnin.The comedy lineup features a stand-up show hosted by Michelle Buteau and a live show called “I Don’t Think So, Honey!,” hosted by Yang and Matt Rogers, that grew out of a segment on their podcast.The festival is funded by Barry Diller, the mega-mogul who paid for Little Island and whose family foundation will bankroll the first two decades of the park’s operations. It will run from Aug. 11 to Sept. 5. More

He led a big band, conducted on Broadway, collected Emmys and for nearly 50 years led the orchestra on the annual Tony Awards broadcast.Elliot Lawrence, who after leading a big band in the 1940s and ’50s won a Tony Award for his conducting on Broadway and spent nearly a half-century in charge of the orchestra that plays on the Tonys’ annual broadcast, died on July 2 in Manhattan. He was 96.His son Jamie confirmed the death, at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.A pianist by training, Mr. Lawrence was a leader from a young age, forming one youth ensemble, the Band Busters, at age 12. In his 20s he started Elliot Lawrence and His Orchestra, which was voted the most promising new big band in Billboard’s college polls in 1947 and 1948.His later work as conductor of the Tony Awards orchestra — a job he got because of his success on Broadway and in television — earned him two Emmy Awards.“He was happiest in front of an orchestra,” said Jamie Lawrence, who is also a musician and conductor.The big-band era was waning after World War II, but Mr. Lawrence’s orchestra found success playing colleges, proms and concerts. In 1949 alone, it traveled 65,000 miles.The band’s members variously included the saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, who wrote some of its arrangements, and the trumpeter Red Rodney. It performed at the Paramount Theater in Manhattan and at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles.“He knew how to rehearse, and he had great ears,” Joe Soldo, who played saxophone for Mr. Lawrence’s band from 1949 to 1951, said by phone. “He had instrumentation, like a separate oboe and a French horn. He brought classical input to his arrangements.”But Mr. Lawrence decided to stop touring in 1954 after a trombone player in his band, Ollie Wilson, had given him bad news about some of the other musicians.“He came to me one night on the road and said, ‘El, I’m sorry to tell you this, but out of the 16 guys in the band, 14 of them were junkies.’ Only Ollie and I were clean,” Mr. Lawrence recalled in 2009 in an interview with the alumni magazine of his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania.He occasionally reassembled the band in various configurations to record albums, including “Elliot Lawrence Plays Gerry Mulligan Arrangements” (1955), “Swinging at the Steel Pier” (1956) and “Jazz Goes Broadway” (1957).By then he had begun to find work in television. In 1959, he conducted a 42-piece orchestra that the television host Ed Sullivan took to the Soviet Union.While there, one of the many performers on the trip, the choreographer Gower Champion, asked Mr. Lawrence to be the musical director of “Bye Bye Birdie,” which Mr. Champion was directing and which was to open on Broadway the next year.Mr. Lawrence was conducting the “Bye Bye Birdie” orchestra — on his way to a Tony nomination — when the composer Frank Loesser hired him for the same job on his new musical, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” which opened in October 1961.Their collaboration proved fruitful. Mr. Lawrence won a Tony, one of seven that the show received, including best musical and best actor (Robert Morse).Mr. Lawrence, at the piano, in 1946. He found success leading several bands, including Elliot Lawrence and His Orchestra.CBS RadioElliot Lawrence Broza was born on Feb. 14, 1925, in Philadelphia. His father, Stan Lee Broza, was a founder and executive of the local radio station WCAU. He and Elliot’s mother, Esther (Malis) Broza, produced the long-running variety show “The Horn and Hardart Children’s Hour” on radio and later on television.Elliot began taking piano lessons at age 3. In 1930 he contracted polio, which affected his fingers and neck, but he recovered and began playing again, and at 10 he was accompanying his mother when she sang tunes from the Great American Songbook at parties in their home.He went on to perform with the Band Busters on his parents’ “Children’s Hour.” At 16 he entered the University of Pennsylvania on a music scholarship and became student director of the marching band, writing, he recalled, jazz arrangements for the school’s fight songs when the football team faced Army in a sold-out game at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.After graduating in 1944 with a bachelor’s degree in music, Mr. Lawrence took over WCAU’s house band, which played live on the air. He formed his big band a year later. Around that time he changed his surname to Lawrence and made Broza his middle name.In 1949, as a veteran bandleader of 24, he was focused on the music as well as the business of overseeing a touring group of 17 members, including two singers, that was grossing $300,000 a year but losing money nevertheless because of salaries, transportation, uniforms, booking agency fees and other costs.“You can see it isn’t a way to get rich quick,” Mr. Lawrence told The Kansas City Star, adding: “My father is my business manager. I don’t have to worry about my money being stolen.”The big-band work yielded to conducting on Broadway, where, after “How to Succeed,” he was the musical director of eight more shows, including “1776,” which opened in 1969. By then he was a year into his run as conductor of the Tony Awards orchestra, a gig that would last until 2013.In addition to the Emmys he won for his work on the Tonys, Mr. Lawrence also won Emmys for his musical direction of the television specials “’S Wonderful, ’S Marvelous, ’S Gershwin,” a tribute to George and Ira Gershwin in 1972, and “Night of 100 Stars” (1982), an all-star variety show celebrating the centennial of the Actors’ Fund of America.His television credits include writing music for soap operas like “The Edge of Night,” for which he won two Daytime Emmys, and two ABC Afterschool Specials, which earned him two more Daytime Emmys.He also wrote music for the opening sequence of “The French Connection” (1971) and for “Network” (1976). But most of his “Network” score was cut, Jamie Lawrence said.“Paddy Chayefsky came into the edit room and said, ‘I don’t want to hear music,’” Mr. Lawrence said, referring to the film’s screenwriter. “He only wanted dialogue.”“My dad,” he added, “was very proud of that score.”In addition to his son Jamie, Mr. Lawrence is survived by his daughters, Alexandra and Mia Lawrence; another son, Danny; and five grandchildren. His wife, Amy (Bunim) Lawrence, died in 2017.Ricky Kirschner, the executive producer of the Tonys broadcast, recalled Mr. Lawrence as a gentlemanly leader of the orchestra until he was nearly 90.“Think about it,” he said by phone. “It’s a three-hour show, with 15 performances, and you have to arrange and rehearse music for every possible winner. And when they say who the winner is, you have to be fast enough to play it while the director is in your ear, telling you to cut after 20 or 30 seconds”He added, “Think of doing that when you’re 88.” More

Superb singers and a clear production make a strong case for Ernest Chausson’s seldom heard “Le Roi Arthus.”ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. — It took just two words over the loudspeakers for the audience at the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College on Sunday evening to break into vigorous applause: “Welcome back.”Welcome back, indeed, to Ernest Chausson’s seldom heard opera “Le Roi Arthus,” being presented as part of Bard’s SummerScape festival. And welcome back to many in the audience, for whom being in a theater for live opera with a full orchestra and chorus, after such a long deprivation, was truly something to cheer.“Le Roi Arthus,” based on the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, proved a powerful work for this fraught, polarized moment in American life. It is the story of an idealistic ruler who fails to bring about the era of enlightenment he strives for, but whose principles will endure, as an angelic chorus assures him at the end of an often ravishing score. The production is the latest project in the conductor Leon Botstein’s long campaign to break classical music from its fixation on repertory staples and call attention to neglected works.This remarkable opera, first performed in Brussels in 1903, four years after its composer’s death in a cycling accident at 44, is especially deserving. Chausson, who also wrote the libretto, labored on it for almost a decade — not because he was stuck, but because he wanted to get it right. He did. The Bard production, directed by Louisa Proske, is scenically spare but richly costumed and dramatically effective. And Botstein, leading the American Symphony Orchestra, an impressive cast and the excellent Bard Festival Chorale, made a compelling case for the piece. (How has it languished when many lesser scores by French composers of Chausson’s era — especially, for me, Massenet — keep returning to international stages?)The Bard production, directed by Louisa Proske, is scenically spare but richly costumed and dramatically effective.Maria BaranovaThe influence of Wagner, especially “Tristan und Isolde,” looms over “Le Roi Arthus.” Chausson was a Wagner devotee, no question: For his honeymoon in 1883, he took his wife to the Bayreuth Festival to see “Parsifal.” As he worked on “Arthus,” Chausson exchanged letters with his friend Debussy, who had a love-hate relationship with Wagner. In one letter Chausson wrote that the similarity of subject matter between his opera and “Tristan” — both concerning overpowering feelings of love that lead to betrayals of marriage and duty — would not matter to him if he “could only successfully de-Wagnerize myself.”Wagnerian strands run through the music, even hints of motifs from “Tristan” and the so-called “Tristan” chord. Yet the score also comes across as beholden to the French heritage Chausson was born into, especially Franck and Massenet. His use of thick chromatic harmonies is less dark and elusive, more ludic and radiant, than Wagner’s writing. The score is rich with lyrical stretches that almost break into song.The orchestral prelude teems, at first, with swashbuckling music that suggests the triumphant battle the king’s forces have just waged over the invading Saxons. We meet Arthur, with his wife, Guinevere, at his side, presiding over a celebratory gathering of his court. The baritone Norman Garrett, in elegant robes and gold crown, looked and sounded splendid as Arthur. His voice, deep-set but capable of lightness in its high range, easily conveyed authority and dignity. Yet even in his opening monologue he plumbed the music for hints of the king’s vulnerability.The opera’s illicit lovers, Lancelot (Matthew White) and Guinevere (Sasha Cooke), are reminiscent of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde.Maria BaranovaWhen the king singles out the valiant knight Lancelot (the ardent tenor Matthew White) as a “true victor,” the other knights mutter their resentments, especially the menacing Mordred (Justin Austin, a youthful baritone). In this telling of the story, Lancelot and Guinevere are already deeply consumed by illicit love. As the queen, the mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke brings gleaming sound and a touch of self-destructive volatility to her singing. Unlike Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, this couple is fully aware that they are betraying their king and their oaths. But, as Guinevere sings, “love is the only law.”The singers brought dedication to an important project, learning these demanding roles for this production. Botstein’s enthusiasm for a score he has long championed came through — sometimes too much. In bringing out the brassy richness and intensity of the music, he sometimes let the orchestra overpower the singers. Still, he brought urgent pacing and color to this nearly three-hour score.The opera ends with a series of death scenes, one for each of the principal characters — a dramatically risky move that Chausson handles deftly. In a daringly slow, mesmerizing monologue, Guinevere strangles herself with her own long hair. Lancelot, having offered no defense in a battle with former comrades who are avenging their king, comes back to the castle mortally wounded, living long enough to ask Arthur’s forgiveness in anguished yet noble phrasesThe shaken Arthur, seeking death, is greeted by a group of heavenly maidens who offer to take him away — not to death, but to eternal sleep. Chausson turned this sequence into a shimmering, harmonically lush double chorus, performed here by choristers in celestial white robes. “Your name may perish,” they tell Arthur, but “your ideas are immortal.”Let’s hope this production helps Chausson’s opera thrive as well.Le Roi ArthusThrough Sunday at Bard College; fishercenter.bard.edu. Also streamed at that website on July 28. More

The new release by the Brooklyn rapper, who was shot and killed last year, tops Billboard, but fell short of his studio debut.“Faith,” the second album by the Brooklyn rapper Pop Smoke to be released since he was shot and killed in February 2020 at the age of 20, tops the Billboard chart this week, just as the previous one did.But the difference in listenership was stark: “Faith” opened with 88,000 equivalent album units, including 113 million streams and 4,000 in sales, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm, while “Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon,” from last July, was nearly three times more popular in its opening week, earning the equivalent of 251,000 albums sold, with 268 million streams and 59,000 in sales (including now-restricted merchandise bundles).“Faith” received tepid album reviews, with some questioning its posthumous assembly and the inclusion of more than 20 guests (Dua Lipa, Kanye West, Chris Brown) across the album’s 20 tracks. A deluxe edition adding four more songs was released on July 21, the day before the chart week ended.Pop Smoke, born Bashar Jackson, once a leader of Brooklyn’s rising drill movement, was killed last year during a home invasion in the Hollywood Hills after inadvertently revealing his address on Instagram. Los Angeles police officers said at a hearing in May that five teenagers had plotted to rob the rapper, coming away only with a watch that they sold for $2,000.Three people have been charged in juvenile court with Pop Smoke’s killing, while the alleged getaway driver, who the authorities say conceived of the plot and was 19 at the time, is being charged as an adult. A 15-year-old boy has been accused of firing the fatal shots, the authorities said, according to The Los Angeles Times. One person remains at large.Also on the Billboard chart this week: “Sob Rock,” a 1980s tribute by John Mayer, debuts at No. 2 with 84,000 in equivalent units, including 29 million streams and 61,000 in sales. “Sour” by Olivia Rodrigo is No. 3 with 77,000 units; “Planet Her” by Doja Cat is No. 4 with 59,000; and “Dangerous: The Double Album” by Morgan Wallen, who has apologized for his use of a racial slur in February, is No. 5. More

With neither ship nor sea, Dmitri Tcherniakov’s new Bayreuth Festival staging recasts the opera as a tale of violent revenge.BAYREUTH, Germany — The pilgrims to the Green Hill, who have been making their way to the storied festival Richard Wagner founded here 145 years ago, looked more like cattle on Sunday. The theater’s bucolic grounds had become a network of roped-off, one-way sidewalks and checkpoints.With stricter pandemic safety measures than many other European opera houses, the Bayreuth Festival’s opening night — a new production of “Der Fliegende Holländer” (“The Flying Dutchman”) — lacked some of its usual glamour. Indeed, the romance ended at the sight of mobile bathrooms outside the theater; the ones inside had been deemed too risky. The audience was limited to 900, less than half the house’s capacity.Yet the unpleasantness of these restrictions faded as the lights dimmed, the hall resounded with the stormy opening of “Holländer,” and the Bayreuth experience began to work its usual magic.And what a sound it was: The orchestra, propulsive and spirited from the start, was led by Oksana Lyniv, the first female conductor in the festival’s history. Much has rightly been made of that milestone, however embarrassingly overdue.In Dmitri Tcherniakov’s production, the opera takes place firmly on land, with the opening scene at the bar of a small town.Enrico Nawrath/Bayreuther FestspieleLyniv’s “Holländer” was occasionally a little brash, but it was always both driven by and driving the drama, with sharp attention to detail and pacing — in a work whose repetitive score can easily sag under a less assured baton.She wasn’t the only newcomer at the festival this summer: Dmitri Tcherniakov, virtually unavoidable at European houses in recent years, was directing his first Bayreuth production. And Asmik Grigorian, a steel-voiced soprano and one of the finest acting talents in opera, was making her debut here as Senta — a performance met with a roaring ovation.There was polite applause for Grigorian’s colleagues, as well; the audience seemed ready to warmly greet whatever they saw after Bayreuth was canceled last year. But although there were some elements of normalcy on Sunday — Chancellor Angela Merkel was even back in her usual box — the festival was still far from its former self.The full forces of Bayreuth’s fabled chorus, for example, were not allowed onstage. Instead they were divided: half singing in the theater, complemented by an ensemble of lip-syncing actors, and half broadcast from a separate hall. The effect was at times acoustically disorienting.From left, Marina Prudenskaya as Mary, Eric Cutler as Erik and Grigorian as Senta.Enrico Nawrath/Bayreuther FestspieleAs a director, Tcherniakov is often interested in trauma: the ways in which it is overcome, sublimated or succumbed to. Here, that was manifest in the Dutchman’s origin story, recounted in a series of vignettes during the overture.The Dutchman, in this telling, grew up in a small town — possibly coastal, though there is neither a ship nor sea in sight — with uniform, clean, monochromatic, rather sinister architecture. His single mother had an affair with a married man, who violently broke things off with her. Gossip spread, and she became an outcast, isolated in an already isolating place. So she hanged herself; the boy, unable to help, was left mournfully holding onto her swinging foot.He leaves his hometown and later returns — like the libretto’s cursed Dutchman, docking his ship every seven years in search of a love that will redeem him. Now an adult, with an imposing build and furrowed brow, he is unrecognizable at a local bar, where he tells his tale to a half-interested crowd. (The baritone John Lundgren’s delivery of the monologue was strained, and misaligned with the menacing force of his demeanor.)Among the people the Dutchman meets at the bar is Daland — in the libretto a sea captain and the father of the opera’s heroine, Senta, but here a clean-cut, middle-class man. (Indeed, the one who ruined his mother’s life.) The bass Georg Zeppenfeld portrays him with a warm tone and a touch of naïve insouciance.From left, John Lundgren, Prudenskaya, Georg Zeppenfeld and Grigorian in Act II of the opera.Enrico Nawrath/Bayreuther FestspieleThe cityscape shifts between scenes, its buildings fluidly rearranging into new configurations. At the beginning of Act II, they create a plaza-like space for the “Spinning Chorus,” led by Mary, Senta’s nurse (though in Tcherniakov’s staging presented as her mother and played, often silently, by Marina Prudenskaya with weary exasperation).This scene introduces Grigorian’s Senta, a young woman with Billie Eilish hair and a defiant streak. She sings her Ballad — which recounts the Dutchman legend, with an emphasis on his redemption by a woman who will be faithful to him until death — with dramatic gesticulations and a sense of ironic overstatement. But later, when she is alone onstage and her theme returns, Grigorian delivers the tune with quiet, sincere longing, perhaps seeing in the Dutchman a kindred spirit.She and the Dutchman meet over an awkward dinner at her house, separated by her parents and seated at opposite ends of the table, which is laid out slowly and fussily. It’s not exactly a meet-cute, but something clicks, and the parents fade to invisibility as Senta and the Dutchman sing what came off on Sunday as a mismatched duet, Grigorian luxuriously lyrical and Lundgren a little thin. (Eric Cutler, who sang the role of Erik, the Dutchman’s rival for Senta’s affections, similarly struggled to rise to her level.)The Bayreuth Festival’s chorus was divided in two, with half singing onstage, complemented by silent actors, and the others broadcast from a separate hall.Enrico Nawrath/Bayreuther FestspieleAct III opens like most any “Holländer” production, with the town’s women bringing the men food — only here they gather to enjoy it together. Off to the side, though, is a group of sullen men whose dark clothing contrasts with the earth tones of the locals. Traditionally, they would be the Dutchman’s ghostly crew, and they provide one strategic use of the broadcast choir. As their lines are played through speakers, the men onstage remain threateningly silent.They are, it becomes apparent, willing collaborators in the Dutchman’s plot to exact deadly revenge on the town. After Erik confronts Senta about their now-broken promises to each other, a fight breaks out in which the Dutchman coolly shoots someone while the crowd retreats back into the town — which the mysterious men have set on fire.As smoke fills the space and the Dutchman violently casts Senta aside — just as her father once did to his mother — Mary enters with a shotgun, aims it directly at the Dutchman’s chest and pulls the trigger. It’s a lot of violence in not a lot of time, and it wasn’t easy to follow on opening night.But one thing was clear. Even though this production, as it had been described in advance press, is focused on the psychology and background of the Dutchman, the redemptive power of Senta was inescapable. Rather than join him in an act of eternal devotion, she takes the gun from her shaking mother and holds her, bringing a sense of calm as the curtain comes down.So while Tcherniakov might have been most interested in the psyche of an angry and vengeful man, the only character who truly changes — and, indeed, matures — in his staging is Senta. Especially with Grigorian onstage, it’s very much her opera.Der Fliegende HolländerThrough Aug. 20 at the Bayreuth Festival, Germany; bayreuther-festspiele.de. Also streaming Tuesday on DG Stage; dg-premium.com. More

For all their shared experiences, each of these five artists has a unique story of struggles and triumphs.Asian composers who write in Western classical musical forms, like symphonies and operas, tend to have a few things in common. Many learned European styles from an early age, and finished their studies at conservatories there or in the United States. And many later found themselves relegated to programming ghettos like Lunar New Year concerts. (One recent study found that works by Asian composers make up only about 2 percent of American orchestral performances planned for the coming season.)At times, the music of Asian composers has been misunderstood or exoticized; they have been subjected to simple errors such as, in the case of Huang Ruo, who was born in China, repeated misspellings of his name.For all their shared experiences, each of these artists has a unique story. Here, five of them provide a small sampling of the lessons, struggles and triumphs of composers who were born in Asia and made a career for themselves in Western classical music. These are edited excerpts from interviews with them.Tan DunMusic is my language. To me “West” and “East” are just ways of talking — or like ways of cooking. I’m a chef, and sometimes I find my recipe is like my orchestrations. It would be so boring if you asked me to cook in one style. Eastern and Western, then, have for me become a unique recipe in which one plus one equals one.I am in a very special zone historically. I’m 63, and part of the first generation of Eastern composers after the Cultural Revolution to deal with Western forms. But it’s just like rosemary, butter and vegetables. You can cook this way, that way — and that’s why the same orchestras sound so different, from Debussy to Stravinsky to myself.I’m lucky. When I came to the United States as a student, my teachers and classmates gave me enormous encouragement to discover myself. And I learned so much from John Cage. After this, it felt so easy to compose. And when people approach me for commissions, I re-approach them about what I’m thinking about. I remember when Kurt Masur asked me to write something for the New York Philharmonic — the Water Concerto for Water Percussion and Orchestra — I said, “Can I write something for water?” He said, “As long as you don’t flood our orchestra.”Yes, we often are misunderstood. It’s like when you cook beautiful black bean with chili sauce and chocolate. They may say, “Hey, this is a little strange.” But you explain why, and that can be very interesting. Thank God I love to talk. And there has been progress for us. I am the first Eastern composer to be the dean of a Western conservatory, at Bard. That’s like a Chinese chef becoming the chef of an Italian restaurant. That’s the future: a different way of approaching color, boundary-less, a unity of the soul.Du Yun”If I’m a spokesperson,” Du Yun said, “it’s for my own voice.”Caitlin Ochs for The New York TimesOne thing about composers like Tan Dun: They came out of the Cultural Revolution, after a door had closed for so many years. So there was so much focus on what China was doing, a lot of curiosity — curiosity rather than active racism. Our generation — I’m 44 — is so different.We learn Western music with such rigorous systems. And we do not close our ears to different traditions or styles; that attitude determines early on that you don’t have that kind of boundary, or ownership. But you still hear those conversation topics about “East meets West.” It’s so tiring. East has been meeting West for thousands of years; if we’re always still just meeting, that’s a problem.Programming Chinese composers around Lunar New Year is in general very problematic. Do we need to celebrate the culture? Yes. Do we need to celebrate the tradition? Absolutely. But it can be part of the main subscription series, or a yearlong series. Then you can really tell stories, not just group people by a country.My name does not give me ownership of Chinese culture. There are so many things I don’t know. There are so many burdens and fights — as the woman, the woman of color, the Chinese woman — that I decided to fight nothing and just create my own stuff. I told myself that if I had a great body of work, that would speak to what a Chinese woman can do.I never wanted to be pigeonholed, to be a reduced representation. I wanted to always open that Pandora’s box of messiness — and I encourage others to celebrate messiness, the unclean narrative of your life. Every immigrant has her own path; your work should absolutely be reflective of that. So if I’m a spokesperson, it’s for my own voice. And through that particular voice, I hope there is something that resonates.Bright ShengWhen someone asks Bright Sheng whether he’s a Chinese or American composer, he responds, “100 percent both.”Nora Tam/South China Morning Post, via Getty ImagesWhen I left China, it was a time of economic and, in a different way, cultural reform. I’m glad I came to the United States, but I do have a little bit of guilt. I probably could have done more there. But my agenda was to try to learn Western music and become the best pianist, conductor and composer I could be. I was fortunate to meet Leonard Bernstein, and I was under his wing for five years. Now, at 65, when someone asks me if I consider myself a Chinese or American composer, I say, in the most humble way, “100 percent both.” I’m well-versed in both cultures.There has been racism and misunderstanding, but that is inevitable. Would that be different if there were Asian people running orchestras? Yes, of course. My response has just been to try to write the best music I can. I wrote an opera for San Francisco Opera — “Dream of the Red Chamber,” which they’re reviving. It’s a very popular Chinese story, and when I worked on it with David Henry Hwang, we asked ourselves: “Is this for a Western audience or Eastern audience?” We decided first and foremost it should just be good, and it had to be touching. Good music transcends.For example, a piece of mine, “H’un (Lacerations),” premiered at the 92nd Street Y in New York. It is subtitled “In Memoriam 1966-1976” — about the Cultural Revolution — and it is very harsh and dramatic, with no melody. My mother was there, and she said it brought back a lot of painful memories. I was also sitting next to this very old Jewish woman, and after I took a bow onstage, she leaned over and said, “If you changed the title to ‘Auschwitz,’ this would be just as appropriate.” That was the highest compliment.Unsuk Chin“I believe in multiple identities and think that without curiosity,” Unsuk Chin said, “any style or any musical culture atrophies and risks becoming a museum.”Julie Glassberg for The New York TimesThe Korea of my childhood and adolescence was a very different place from what it is today. In the 1960s, it was an impoverished developing country, devastated by colonialism and by the Korean War, and until the late 1980s, there was a military dictatorship in place. In order to develop as a composer, one had to go abroad, as there didn’t exist an infrastructure for new music. Now 60, and having lived for 35 years in Europe, it remains important for me to contribute to the contemporary music scene in Asia.When I moved to Germany, there was a tendency to put composers in certain boxes, with all the aesthetic turf wars back then. Since I was neither interested in joining any camp or fashionable avant-garde or other trends, fulfilling exotic expectations, or assumptions of how a woman should or should not compose, I had to start a career in other countries while still living in Germany. Prejudices such as viewing an Asian composer or performing musician only through “sociological” lenses are still relatively common in various countries, but times are changing. Of course, there exist prejudices and complacency in the whole world, including in Asia. Perhaps the only remedy to this apparently, and sadly, all-too-human impulse is try to retain a sense of wonder and attempt to find distance to oneself.I have worked in different countries for decades, and have felt a need to stay curious about different musical cultures, traditions and genres. I believe in multiple identities and think that without curiosity, any musical style or culture atrophies and risks becoming a museum: Art has always thrived when there has been cross-fertilization.At the same time, one should be wary of the danger of exoticism and superficial cultural appropriation. I think that a contemporary composer needs to study different cultures, traditions and genres, but make use of those influences in a selective, historically conscious and self-critical manner.Huang RuoHuang Ruo said that if he spoke English with an accent, he composed with one, too.Rathkopf PhotographyWhen people heard I came from China, they would often say, “Does your music sound like Tan Dun?” I don’t think they meant any harm, but it shows a certain ignorance. I tried to explain that China is a big country, and we all speak with our own voice.I started as an instrumental composer, and a lot of those works got programmed at Asian-themed or Lunar New Year concerts. I didn’t notice at first, but you begin to see patterns. I don’t feel my work has any less quality than my other colleagues who are not minority composers, but for conductors, programmers and artistic directors, it doesn’t seem to come to their mind that you can naturally program an Asian composer’s work next to Beethoven or Tchaikovsky.That’s one of the reasons I turned to opera. I thought, there must be no opera company having a themed season devoted to Asian composers. So finally, I got to be programmed next to “Fidelio” and “Madama Butterfly.” That was my revenge. Also, I’ve wanted to write on subjects that reflect Asian or Asian American topics, to really share these stories. In this case it is actually me making the choice.Someone once told me I speak English with an accent. I said, “Otherwise, how would you know that’s me speaking?” I feel the same way as a composer. I want to have my own originality, to speak with my own accent — with my love of Western musical styles, but also this heritage I carry of Chinese culture.Without coming to the United States, I would be a different composer. If I went to Europe instead, I would also be very different. But I feel I made the right decision, and at 44 I fully embrace who I am today, and where I am as well. More