Music

Singing isn’t typically in the job description when you’re an orchestral musician. But the Budapest Festival Orchestra is not a typical orchestra, and on Sunday afternoon at David Geffen Hall, the players put down their instruments, stood up, and sang a short chorus by Dvorak — beautifully.It spoke to what makes this ensemble so special. The conductor Ivan Fischer, who founded it in 1983 and is an outspoken voice for tolerance in Hungary, has always taken a comprehensive approach to making music. The main works on this program were Dvorak’s Violin Concerto and his Eighth Symphony.But to introduce elements of folk song and dance that run through Dvorak’s major scores, Mr. Fischer began with three short pieces: a lyrically glowing Legend, a rousing Slavonic Dance and that wistful choral piece, “Misto Klekani” (“Evening’s Blessing”).All musicians learn to sight-sing, at least as students. But the Budapest players still exercise this skill. Maybe that explains why their playing in the Eighth Symphony sang out with such fullness and breadth, and why chordal passages had such strong hints of a church choir.Renaud Capuçon was a riveting soloist in Dvorak’s Violin Concerto. The violin essentially leads the orchestra through the rhapsodic first movement, playing restless lines that shift from searching lyricism to impetuous brilliance. Mr. Capuçon and the orchestra were inspired in the Finale, a dancing, sometimes impish movement full of sudden, startling dark bursts. After intermission, the performance of the Eighth Symphony was alive with color, fanciful flights, elegiac sadness and, in the rousing finale, almost frenzied abandon.On Monday evening, the orchestra was back with a Mahler program that opened with the “Kindertotenlieder.” The soloist was Gerhild Romberger, making her New York debut; she proved a true contralto, with a warm, deep, russet-tone voice. For these aching songs, Mahler often uses the orchestra almost like a chamber ensemble, and the intimacy of the playing here matched Ms. Romberger’s elegantly restrained singing.The teeming Fifth Symphony, lasting nearly 80 minutes, presents formidable challenges, especially the need to reconcile the disparate elements of music that constantly shifts moods, even within movements. Mr. Fischer led the most convincing account I’ve heard in many years of this elusive work.The first movement, an episodic funeral march, moved with a weighty tread, over which a somber melodic line kept trying to offer solace. Mahler indicates that the stormy second movement should be performed with “greatest vehemence,” and this performance delivered.For the sprawling Scherzo, Mr. Fischer had the first horn (Zoltan Szoke) seated next to the podium to highlight crucial solo passages, played vibrantly here. In the sublime Adagietto, the string sound was glowing and plush; the phrasing urgent yet pliant. Right through the Rondo-Finale, the performance danced on the divide between rustic romp and wild-eyed abandon.It truly sang. No surprise from an orchestra that makes such a beautiful chorus, too.Budapest Festival OrchestraPerformed on Sunday and Monday at David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center. More

Bob Dylan’s protean career has created many entry points for a diverse audience: You may know him as a folk activist or an electric trickster, a country-western outlaw or a born-again preacher, an American Songbook interpreter or a Nobel Prize-winning poet.Or you may not know him at all, unaware it’s one of his songs your favorite artist is covering.The Irish playwright and director Conor McPherson, 48, was about 10 years old when he got into Dylan via the Beatles. Decades later, he somehow wrestled a coherent aesthetic universe out of 22 Dylan songs in the musical “Girl From the North Country,” which is reopening on Broadway after a successful run at the Public Theater in 2018. Set in Duluth, Minn., in 1934, the show brings together the folks who live in a modest boardinghouse and those passing through. They are a motley bunch, yet feel as one sharing Dylan’s songs.It is the same behind the scenes: Like McPherson, some members of the cast and creative team grew up with Dylan embedded in their life; others entered his world late and through a side door.Here, they talk about the first time they heard Dylan — whether they knew it or not. These are edited excerpts from their answers.Colton Ryan, 24Plays Gene LaineThe first Dylan song I heard that stuck with me was “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” during an episode of “Mad Men.” Must have been in high school.Andy Stack, 39Associate conductor, guitaristI think the first record was “Blood on the Tracks” but then I got into ’80s stuff that was on CD when I was growing up, like “Dylan & the Dead.” In college it was “Desire,” which was big for my circle of friends.Kimber Elayne Sprawl, 28Plays Marianne LaineTo be completely honest, I didn’t put the name to the music before going for the role [in the show]. Then I realized that the Adele song I loved, “Make You Feel My Love,” was by him. The famous song from “Forrest Gump” [starts singing “Blowin’ in the Wind”] — I had no idea it was Bob Dylan.Rachel SternEnsemble member “old enough to appreciate the Traveling Wilburys when they formed and know who all of them were”The first Bob Dylan song I remember hearing was “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35.” I didn’t get it because I was five, but I thought it sounded cool. My favorite is Nina Simone’s version of “The Times They Are A-Changin.’ ” I heard it for the first time on the subway and sobbed. I got a seat right away.Todd Almond, 43Plays Elias BurkeI was big into alternative music in high school, and PJ Harvey’s cover of “Highway 61 Revisited” was a favorite. This was the first in a long list of realizations that certain songs I really loved were written by Bob Dylan.Austin Scott, 26Plays Joe ScottI think the first song I heard was “The Times They Are A-Changin.’ ” At the time, around 2010 or so, I was hearing some of my own thoughts about the political atmosphere. We talked about his lyrics in history class.Marc Kudisch, 53Plays Mr. BurkeI had always been a fan of Dylan’s earlier music, the protest songs. After the Public Theater run, my wife, Shannon, and I were driving from N.Y.C. to Oshawa, Ontario, to visit family. On the way, we tuned into a classic-rock station. A Dylan tune I didn’t recognize came on, but I weirdly found myself singing all the lyrics. And then it hit me: It was “Tight Connection to My Heart (Has Anyone Seen My Love?)”! With all due respect, I like our version better.Tom Nelis, 65Plays Mr. PerryAbout 40 years ago, my older brother, John, came home with Dylan’s “Blonde on Blonde.” I’d never seen a double album. The way it unfolded to show a full body shot of Dylan in that great outfit with the scarf and all those shades of brown was very cool. Johnny is gone now but I still have his album. It reminds me of my brother when he was young.Chelsea Lee WilliamsEnsemble member “in my twenties”My parents listened to a lot of gospel and soul music. I remember being in the back seat of my mom’s Volvo and she would always play Shirley Caesar’s “Gotta Serve Somebody.” I didn’t know Dylan wrote it at the time, but it was always a part of my childhood. A few years later, I saw his Kennedy Center special and Shirley Caesar honored him by singing that song.Jeannette BayardellePlays Mrs. Neilsen and is “north of 25”I wasn’t really familiar with Bob Dylan’s music — my parents, who are from Haiti, mainly played Haitian music. When I started working on the reading of “Girl From the North Country” at the Public Theater, I remember learning the material and just feeling like the music was tugging on my soul. It was familiar yet very spiritual.Mare Winningham, 60Plays Elizabeth Laine“Blood on the Tracks” came out when I was in high school and remains my “desert island” album.Luba MasonPlays Mrs. Burke and is “one of the veteran Broadway actresses in the show”I saw Dylan at Madison Square Garden on a double bill with Paul Simon about 20 years ago and couldn’t understand a word he was singing. I didn’t know what the fuss was all about. It wasn’t until he won the Nobel that I took another look.Jay O. Sanders, 66Plays Nick LaineI grew up all over the place but I heard a lot of Dylan when I was in Bogotá, Colombia, and I was beginning to play guitar. I was 13, 14, going between acoustic and electric, and he was the god of that.Simon Hale, 55Music supervisor, orchestrator and arrangerWhat springs to mind are “Make You Feel My Love” by Adele and “All Along the Watchtower” by Jimi Hendrix. I didn’t realize they were by Dylan. Growing up [in Britain], I listened to funk, jazz, R&B, so he wasn’t really on my musical radar. I was aware of him and his poetry, but not in terms of details and albums. Americans now tell me Dylan is part of the DNA but I never knew that. More

As the union representing opera performers prepared to release the results of an inquiry finding that the superstar Plácido Domingo had engaged in “inappropriate activity” with women, it was quietly working to reach a financial agreement with him.But the deal they were working on — which called for the union, the American Guild of Musical Artists, to limit its public statements about the inquiry and for Mr. Domingo to pay the union $500,000 — fell apart on Tuesday after details of the investigation were leaked overnight, according to an email from the union’s leaders.“Based on this flagrant breach of confidentiality Domingo’s counsel has withdrawn the agreement, which was expressly premised on A.G.M.A.’s promise to maintain confidentiality over the details of the investigatory report,” said the email, which was signed by Leonard Egert, the union’s national executive director, and Raymond Menard, its president, and sent to the union’s board. It was read to The New York Times by two recipients.The union released a statement Tuesday night calling the payment a “fine” which it described as “to our knowledge the largest to be imposed on a union member,” and not in “exchange for A.G.M.A.’s silence or to make any ‘secret deal.’”“Regardless of the fine imposed, A.G.M.A. was never planning to publicly release the specific details of its internal investigation, as the union had assured witnesses of confidentiality,” said the statement, which the union said it was releasing to counter “misperceptions” left by reports of the deal by The Times and NPR. “Any suggestion that the union was being paid to withhold information is patently false.”The inquiry began last year after The Associated Press reported allegations of sexual misconduct from women who had worked with Mr. Domingo. In a public statement on Tuesday, the union released the inquiry’s conclusions, saying that Mr. Domingo had “engaged in inappropriate activity, ranging from flirtation to sexual advances, in and outside of the workplace.”“Many of the witnesses expressed fear of retaliation in the industry as their reason for not coming forward sooner,” the statement said, without providing further detail.But The A.P. learned that the investigators had spoken with 27 women who described various behaviors including unsolicited kisses on the mouth, groping, and late-night phone calls. Two of the women told investigators they had sex with Mr. Domingo after feeling pressure to submit, The A.P. reported.The email from Mr. Egert, who declined to comment, criticized whoever divulged the specifics of the investigation, saying that they had broken an internal agreement to keep the details confidential. Earlier, union officials had told members that some of the women who had spoken with investigators had insisted on confidentiality, fearing reprisals from the industry. (The A.P. did not publish any names of women who had not already gone public.)“As a result of their actions, A.G.M.A. has lost $500,000 that not only would have covered the costs of the investigation,” the email said, “but also would have funded an extensive sexual harassment prevention training program that is so desperately needed in our industry.”Nancy Seltzer, a spokeswoman for Mr. Domingo, disputed that account, and said that “what is truthful is we are in ongoing discussions with the union on how to move forward and nothing is off the table.”Publicly, Mr. Domingo, 79, a famed tenor who held leadership positions at the Los Angeles Opera and the Washington National Opera, issued his fullest apology yet. “I have taken time over the last several months to reflect on the allegations that various colleagues of mine have made against me,” Mr. Domingo said in a statement on Tuesday. “I respect that these women finally felt comfortable enough to speak out, and I want them to know that I am truly sorry for the hurt that I caused them.”Two of the women who went on the record to The A.P. to accuse Mr. Domingo of misconduct and harassment, Patricia Wulf and Angela Turner Wilson, said in a statement through their lawyer that they believed he should be expelled from the union.Debra Katz, the lawyer representing them, said in an interview that she was “distressed” to learn about the union’s financial talks with Mr. Domingo.“The fact is that A.G.M.A. was trying to enter into a secret deal with Plácido Domingo that was conditioned on confidentiality, and in exchange he gave a tepid apology and offered to pay some money that is a fraction of what he earns,” she said. “And what are the women getting out of this?”Several American companies, including the Metropolitan Opera and the San Francisco Opera, canceled Mr. Domingo’s upcoming appearances following the allegations. But European companies said they would await the outcome of investigations into his behavior before deciding whether to act.Mr. Domingo has numerous upcoming performances planned throughout Europe, where he has been greeted with ovations since the allegations were made public, and several companies said on Tuesday that they expect his appearances to move forward as scheduled.Next month, Mr. Domingo is scheduled to sing the title role in Verdi’s “Simon Boccanegra” at the Hamburg State Opera. A spokesman for the company, Michael Bellgardt, said in an email on Tuesday that he expected Mr. Domingo to perform as planned “if nothing happens to call this into question.”He is still expected to appear as Giorgio Germont in Verdi’s “La Traviata” in May at the Teatro Real in Madrid, said Graça Prata Ramos, a spokeswoman for the company. And the Royal Opera House in London said that it planned to go ahead with his appearances there this summer. “Plácido will be here in the summer performing as planned in ‘Don Carlo,’ ” Vicky Kington, a spokeswoman, said in an email Tuesday.But there was a shift at the Salzburg Festival in Austria, which was the site of Mr. Domingo’s first return to the stage after the allegations against him were made public last summer. He is scheduled to return there in August to sing in Verdi’s “I Vespri Siciliani.” But the festival said it would seek further information before deciding on a course of action.“The festival’s priority was and remains to treat the singer, who has been confronted with accusations of wrongdoing, fairly — in other words, not to rush to any judgment,” it said in a statement. “The facts, however, have now changed.”Citing Mr. Domingo’s apology, which, it noted, conceded “that his behavior might have hurt the women in question,” the festival said it would seek more information about the investigations in the United States.Mr. Domingo said in his statement that he took responsibility for his actions.“I accept full responsibility for my actions, and I have grown from this experience,” he continued. “I understand now that some women may have feared expressing themselves honestly because of a concern that their careers would be adversely affected if they did so. While that was never my intention, no one should ever be made to feel that way.”Mr. Menard, the union’s president, said in a statement that the union would “remain committed to confronting systemic problems which can cause our members to suffer unlawful discrimination and harassment at work, and to protecting the health and safety of our members.”The Los Angeles Opera, which Mr. Domingo helped found, and led until he stepped down last year, is still conducting its own investigation.Alex Marshall contributed reporting. More