Music

Gerard Way and his bandmates will take the stage at Discovery Park in Sacramento on the Saturday night of the event, while Metallica will fill the Friday and Sunday dates. More

In Wagner’s “Der Fliegende Holländer,” a bewitched sea captain is allowed to leave his ship only once every seven years, to try to break the spell that has condemned him to roam the oceans for eternity.Nearly eight years have passed since the great Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel last made landfall at the Metropolitan Opera. He was scheduled to return on March 2 in the title role of the company’s first new production of “Der Fliegende Holländer” (“The Flying Dutchman”) in over three decades.But whatever curse has kept Mr. Terfel, one of the biggest stars in opera, from the stage of the Met has apparently not yet lifted: The company announced on Wednesday evening that Mr. Terfel, who fractured his ankle in a recent fall in Spain, had withdrawn from the entire run.Lee Abrahamian, a spokeswoman for the Met, said the company was still looking for a replacement.Mr. Terfel, 54, fractured his ankle when he fell earlier this week while in Bilbao, where he was appearing in, yes, “Der Fliegende Holländer.” He returned home to Wales, where he is expected to have surgery.The Met confirmed Mr. Terfel’s withdrawal after he canceled two upcoming recitals in the United States. First the Lyric Opera of Chicago announced that he had withdrawn from a concert planned for Feb. 2, which was to have been his first appearance there in nearly 15 years. Lyric Opera said that he had “fractured the three prominences of his ankle, causing the ankle to partly dislocate and requiring a surgery scheduled for later this week.” Then Carnegie Hall announced that his Feb. 9 date was off.The Met now has a hole at the center of one of its most important productions of the year. It is a high-profile assignment: The new production is being directed by François Girard, whose striking 2013 staging of Wagner’s “Parsifal” was widely praised. The cast of the opera, conducted by Valery Gergiev, includes the acclaimed soprano Anja Kampe, making her Met debut as Senta.This is not the first time Mr. Terfel’s long-delayed return to the Met has been postponed: In 2017, he withdrew from a new production of Puccini’s “Tosca,” citing vocal fatigue. He has not performed at the Met since May 9, 2012, when he sang the role of the Wanderer in Wagner’s “Siegfried,” in Robert Lepage’s much-debated, high-tech staging.He has occasionally been seen in the United States since then — he made a memorable appearance in the title role of “Sweeney Todd” with the New York Philharmonic in 2014, opposite Emma Thompson — but he has confined most of his appearances in staged operas to European houses. He has also gone through a number of changes in his personal life, including getting married last year, to the harpist Hannah Stone.In a promotional video, Mr. Terfel spoke about his excitement at returning to the Met: “I can tell you, hand on heart, when I walk through that stage door for a first day of a new production, I am as excited as a little kid in a candy shop, and yet I am as nervous as I was singing Figaro in ‘Le Nozze di Figaro’ for the first time at the Metropolitan Opera.” More

Harry Harrison, the homey disc jockey who awakened radio listeners and accompanied them on their morning commute with a deep, mellow voice as the “Morning Mayor of New York” for more than four decades, died on Tuesday at his home in Westwood, N.J. He was 89.The cause was a combination of multiple health problems, his daughter, Patti, said.Mr. Harrison’s first radio program had played so well in Peoria, Ill., that in 1958, when he was still in his 20s, WMCA brought him to New York. He went on to become the only D.J. to broadcast, in succession, on three of the top music stations in the city. He was a WMCA Good Guy and a WABC All-American — the clubby team names adopted by the stations to brand their announcers — and a morning drive-time host for WCBS, 101.1 FM, until he retired from full-time broadcasting in 2003. (His death certificate said he died at 1:01 p.m.)While some of his contemporaries harangued or interrupted guests or gratingly volunteered their opinions, Mr. Harrison would wake New Yorkers “as gently as a whiff of fresh-brewed coffee,” the entertainment reporter David Hinckley wrote on medium.com.What distinguished Mr. Harrison in the highly competitive New York metropolitan market — even before the advent of shock jocks — was his folksy Midwest patter.He would eclectically intersperse Beatles tracks with birthday greetings and listeners’ nominations for a “Housewife Hall of Fame.” He would deliver bromides like, “Stay well, stay happy, stay right there’” and “Every day should be unwrapped like a precious gift … that’s why they call it the Present.” As his signoff he would say, “Wishing you the best — that’s exactly what you do deserve.”Mr. Harrison conveyed an authenticity, which, friends and colleagues insisted, was authentic.“He was actually corny, and it came across on the air,” Vincent A. Gardino, a former colleague at WABC, said in a phone interview.Mr. Harrison lived in the New York metropolitan area for most of his life and un-self-consciously characterized himself as “like most of the New Yorkers.” What differentiated him from fellow broadcasters, he unabashedly acknowledged, was his conventionality.“I think the secret is that I come across as an ordinary guy, which I am,” he said. “I stayed myself on the radio, and my audience saw that I was like them and so a part of their family.”Harry Harrison Jr. was born on Sept. 20, 1930, in Chicago to Harry Sr. and Mary (McKenna) Harrison.In addition to his daughter, Patti, he is survived by his son, Patrick. His wife, Patricia (Kelly) Harrison, died in 2003. Two other children, Brian Joseph and Michael, died in 1996 and 2017, respectively.Harry attended a seminary, intending to become a priest. But he decided to make broadcasting his career after spending nearly a year as a teenager glued to the radio while bedridden with rheumatic fever.Once he recovered, he job-hunted from station to station until he landed a summer intern stint at WCFL in Chicago. He remained there eight months. In 1954, he joined WPEO in Peoria, where he became program director, hosted a show in which he began his morning routine, and transformed the station into the top rated in its market.Word of Mr. Harrison’s success spread to WMCA, the David going up against the WABC Goliath, and the station lured him to New York, adding him to a lineup of self-styled Good Guys that included Dan Daniel and Jack Spector.Recruited to WABC by the pioneering program director Rick Sklar, he transplanted his show there in 1968, filling the 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. slot. His fellow broadcasters included Johnny Donovan, Charlie Greer, Dan Ingram, Ron Lundy, Bruce Morrow and Scott Muni. Mr. Harrison left in 1979 after a management change.After several months, he joined WCBS, where he remained, playing oldies, until 2003. He then hosted a weekend program featuring music by the Beatles until he retired in 2005.On April 25, 1997, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani proclaimed “Harry Harrison Day” in his honor. In November, Mr. Harrison was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame.Every holiday season, he would recite his own version of “May You Always,” a Top-20 hit written by Larry Marks and Dick Charles and recorded by the McGuire Sisters. Mr. Harrison’s version ended with his signature sanguinity:And sometime soon, may you be waved to by a celebrity,Wagged at by a puppy,Run to by a happy child,And counted on by someone you love.More than this, no one can wish you. More

Kanye laughs at God’s sense of humor and quotes his lyrics from 2004’s ‘The College Dropout’ while referring to the Canadian rapper as a ‘light-skinned dude with a beard.’ More

Franz Mazura, an Austrian bass-baritone best known for his compelling portrayals of operatic villains in a late-starting but long-lasting career that brought him to many of the world’s major houses, died on Jan. 23 in a hospital in Mannheim, Germany. He was 95.His death was announced by his management company, Boris Orlob. He had lived in the nearby town of Edingen-Neckarhausen.Mr. Mazura’s earthy, deep-set voice was ideal for the dark, menacing characters he specialized in. During his prime years he excelled as Klingsor, the evil sorcerer in Wagner’s “Parsifal,” and Don Pizarro, the corrupt governor of a state prison in Beethoven’s “Fidelio.”He helped make opera history in 1979 when the first production of Berg’s “Lulu” in its three-act version was presented in Paris. (The unfinished third act was completed and edited by Friedrich Cerha.)Mr. Mazura sang the double-role of Dr. Schön, a morally bankrupt and lecherous newspaper editor, and the murderous Jack the Ripper. He appears on both the recording and the video of this landmark production, directed by Patrice Chereau and conducted by Pierre Boulez.Mr. Mazura became renowned for these dual roles, which he sang in 1980 for his well-received Metropolitan Opera debut, conducted by James Levine. His Dr. Schön “dominated the stage” both for “acting and for clarity of enunciation,” the critic Patrick J. Smith wrote in Opera magazine. This Dr. Schön was “truly a powerful figure eaten from within,” Mr. Smith continued, and the “cold mania” of his Jack the Ripper was “equally chilling in its impact.”Mr. Mazura appeared at the Met 175 times, through 2002.He was also known for his sneering, nasal-toned portrayal of Alberich the dwarf in Wagner’s “Ring” cycle. Reviewing a 1981 production of the cycle’s “Das Rheingold” at the Met, the critic Bill Zakariasen wrote in The Daily News that Mr. Mazura was “as fine an Alberich as I have witnessed,” and praised his “potent voice,” “venomous, yet human” presence and “gnarled appearance.”An imposing figure onstage, Mr. Mazura brought ominous intensity to the darkly buffoonish role of the Doctor in Berg’s “Wozzeck” and to the sadistic police chief Scarpia in Puccini’s “Tosca,” one of several parts typically sung by baritones that were in his repertory.He played some decent characters as well, like the suffering Gurnemanz in “Parsifal” and the noble King Marke in Wagner’s “Tristan.” He even adapted his skills to lightly comic roles, like Frank in Johann Strauss’s “Die Fledermaus.” But the bad guys were his favorites, as he said in a 2017 interview with Neue Presse in Germany.What made evil roles wonderful were the characters’ many facets, he said, adding that critics had praised him “for the bad things” he brought to these parts. But his wife, he noted impishly, always said that he didn’t play at it — that he just “thought he was at home.”Franz Mazura was born in Salzburg, Austria, on April 12, 1924, the oldest of five children. His father, also Franz, was a tax inspector; his mother, Maria, a homemaker. The family lived in Eisenstadt and later Vienna.Mr. Mazura originally studied mechanical engineering before going into the German navy during World War II, serving first on a submarine and then on the heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer. After the war, on his own in Germany, he studied draftsmanship and, through an acquaintance, took up singing.He studied voice in Detmold during his late 20s and started performing in his early 30s, but did not appear at major houses until his early 40s. He was 47 when he made his debut at the prestigious Bayreuth Festival in Germany, in 1971, singing Gunther in Wagner’s “Gotterdammerung.” He continued a close association with Bayreuth through 1995.Mr. Mazura married Elisabeth Friedmann, a singer, in 1957. She died in 2016. He is survived by their son, Martin; their daughter, Susanna Mazura-Grohmann; a brother, Heinrich; a sister, Irene Berger; and a grandson.By the late-1980s critics were noting that Mr. Mazura’s voice had become rough and patchy. In later years he became an opera world equivalent to a character actor onstage and screen. But he continued to have presence and vocal fortitude.He kept performing almost to the very end. Last April, he rang in his 95th birthday while performing the small role of Hans Schwarz in Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” at the Berlin State Opera, a production conducted by Daniel Barenboim.Interviewed at the time he attributed his longevity to regular vocal exercises, good sense and good genes, noting that he had recently dined with a 106-year-old aunt. More

During his acceptance speech at the 2020 Grammy’s Salute to Industry Icons gala, the music mogul take a jab at the Recording Academy for having no respect for black music. More

The ‘Scars to Your Beautiful’ singer has also been unraveled as the host of the 49th annual Canada’s Grammys at the nominations ceremony where she scores nods including Artist of the Year. More

In addition to announcing the release date of ‘Changes’, the ‘Yummy’ singer reveals his plans for a massive North American tour that will kick off in mid-May in Seattle, Washington. More