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    ‘Tosca’ Is the Boston Symphony’s Andris Nelsons at His Best

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    Andris Nelsons led a concert performance of Puccini’s opera at Tanglewood. It was a high point of the season.Andris Nelsons may have become a fitful, inconsistent music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, but every once in a while, he proves that he has still got it.Such was the lesson on Saturday night at Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summer home in the Berkshires, as Nelsons and a starry cast delivered a concert “Tosca” of high intensity and even higher emotion.This Tanglewood season is a solid one, with the premiere of a new John Williams piano concerto written for Emanuel Ax on the agenda next weekend, a Gabriela Ortiz-curated Festival of Contemporary Music sprawling around the grounds at the same time, and the obligatory appearances of Yo-Yo Ma, famous friend of the orchestra, to come in August. New at Tanglewood this year: tastefully installed screens next to the Shed stage that show the musicians at work, and, by some miracle, enhanced cellphone service. Still unchanged: the humidity.But “Tosca” was always likely to be a high point of the season, and it was. Opera has often brought out the best in Nelsons in Boston, and the closer to the most commonplace parts of the repertoire the work has been, the stronger the performance from him. Wagner transfixed him as a child, and it was at the Latvian National Opera that his career began to take off in his 20s. Now 46, he rarely looks more engaged on the podium than when he is supporting a singer in full flow.And for this Puccini, Nelsons had some singers of quality to support. Bryn Terfel sang his last staged Scarpia at the Met earlier this year, but he still brings unrivaled authority and conviction to a role that has defined his career. Has the passing of time brought a more vicious edge of desperation to his portrayal, as if an older Scarpia might feel as though this is his last, appalling chance to corner his prey, causing him to act with such depravity? Either way, Terfel’s snarling chief of the Roman police remains a privilege to see.So, too, the glorious Cavaradossi of the Korean baritone-turned-tenor SeokJong Baek. Here, as at the Met last fall, his extraordinarily firm, high cries of “Vittoria!” drew instant applause, and they were far from the only point at which this colossal voice, wielded by turns with machined precision and melting sensitivity, could have earned such approval.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Italy Cancels Valery Gergiev’s Festival Appearance

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      Some lawmakers in Italy had argued that Valery Gergiev’s planned appearance sent the wrong message as Europe strives to remain united in its support for Ukraine. A concert at a festival in Italy that was to have been the conductor Valery Gergiev’s first in Western Europe since Russia invaded Ukraine more than three years ago was canceled on Monday amid a backlash over the musician’s close ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.Antonella Giannattasio, a spokeswoman for the Un’Estate da RE festival, said in a telephone interview that Mr. Gergiev would no longer perform on July 27 at the Royal Palace of Caserta, a historic site north of Naples.Italian activists and politicians had denounced plans for Mr. Gergiev to conduct at the event. Mr. Gergiev, a staunch ally of Mr. Putin, lost all his engagements in the West when Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022.There was concern in Italy and more broadly in the European Union about Mr. Gergiev’s participation, given that the festival is bankrolled by the bloc. There were fears that his presence could be seen as an endorsement of Russia at a time when Europe is scrambling to provide weapons to Ukraine as the Trump administration’s support for Kyiv has seemed to waver.Italy’s culture minister, Alessandro Giuli, said in a statement on July 15 that allowing Mr. Gergiev to participate in the festival “risks passing the wrong message.”“Ukraine is an invaded nation, and Gergiev’s concert may turn a high-level but objectively controversial and divisive musical event into a sounding board for Russian propaganda,” Giuli added. “Which for me would be deplorable.”The planned concert also drew international condemnation. Yulia Navalnaja, the widow of the Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, wrote in a guest article for the Italian daily la Repubblica last week that Mr. Gergiev’s performance in Italy “would be a gift to the dictator.”Before the war in Ukraine, Mr. Gergiev was one of the world’s most sought-after conductors, with regular engagements at leading concert halls and opera houses. But his work in the West dried up after he declined to denounce Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. He lost numerous engagements, and the Munich Philharmonic removed him from his post as chief conductor three years before his contract had been set to expire.Mr. Putin rewarded Mr. Gergiev in 2023 by tapping him to lead the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. The move put him at the pinnacle of Russian culture, since he was already the artistic and general director of the nation’s other leading performing arts institution, the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. (In Moscow Mr. Gergiev replaced Vladimir Urin, who had been the Bolshoi’s general director since 2013 and who had signed a petition expressing opposition to the war in Ukraine.)Mr. Gergiev and Mr. Putin have known each other since the 1990s, and the maestro has supported the Russian leader in election campaigns.Elisabetta Povoledo More

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      Renée Fleming, Star Soprano, Tries Out the Director’s Chair

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      A young soprano was rehearsing a difficult aria from Mozart’s “Così Fan Tutte” when the director stopped her and made a suggestion.“I always liked to lay down for this part,” the director said, “because it lets the body relax.”It’s not every opera director who can talk about performing choices in the first person. But on that summer afternoon in Aspen, Colo., the woman staging the scene was Renée Fleming, perhaps the most famous soprano of recent decades. Fleming was passing on a career’s worth of accumulated wisdom to a cast in which the oldest singer is 32.Among her lessons was when to say no.“Just remember, you’re going to be more nervous onstage than you are now,” Fleming said as the group worked on some aerobics-style choreography for the production, set in the early 1980s. “So maybe don’t do these jumps, because even if you can sing while you’re doing them now, you’re going to be out of breath on opening night.”Fleming is making her directing debut with this “Così,” which opens on Monday at the Wheeler Opera House as part of the Aspen Music Festival and School, one of the country’s most prestigious summer programs for rising artists.The soprano Lauren Carroll (left, with Fleming) is singing Fiordiligi, Fleming’s old role.Matthew Defeo for The New York TimesShe joins a select group of divas (and divos) turned directors. This fall, the tenor Rolando Villazón’s production of Bellini’s “La Sonnambula” comes to the Metropolitan Opera. And the mezzo Denyce Graves is staging Scott Joplin’s “Treemonisha” for Washington National Opera next year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Roger Norrington, Iconoclastic British Conductor, Dies at 91

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      His work, largely unknown outside Britain until late in his career, was often based on historical treatises. It was seen by many as refreshingly innovative.Roger Norrington, the English conductor who became a star of the historically informed performance movement by provocatively applying scholarly research about tempos and tone production to a broad expanse of the symphonic repertoire, from Beethoven to Mahler and even the modernist Stravinsky, died on Friday at his home outside of Exeter, England. He was 91.His death was confirmed by his friend and musical colleague Evans Mirageas, who is the artistic director of the Cincinnati Opera.Mr. Norrington was known for his brisk, lively and often audacious performances of Handel, Mozart and Haydn before he turned his attention to Beethoven and Berlioz; after that, he forged deeper into the 19th and early 20th centuries. He led both period-instrument and modern orchestras, using the same interpretive principles, and though some of his performances drew criticism for their brash iconoclasm, many listeners regarded them as insightful and refreshingly original.Lanky, bespectacled, bearded and balding, Mr. Norrington projected both affability and authority, and he loved making the case for his ideas — not only in interviews but also in seemingly off-the-cuff comments at his concerts. He often cited centuries-old treatises as well as his delight in the “pure” sound, as he put it, of strings playing without vibrato. He once famously referred to vibrato as “a modern drug.”Toward the end of his career, he preferred to conduct while seated, usually on a high swivel chair that allowed him to turn to the audience to smile conspiratorially at a light moment within the music, and even to encourage applause. He was known to tell audiences that they could applaud between the movements of a symphony or a concerto, a common practice in the 18th and 19th centuries that is frowned on today.He reveled in being provocative. In a 2021 interview with The Telegraph, he referred to his 2007 recording of Mahler’s Second Symphony as his “last hand grenade.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Only 5 Fingers Playing Piano, but the Sound of So Many Hands

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      When Nicholas McCarthy was 15, he telephoned a local music school to ask about taking piano lessons and mentioned that he was disabled, having been born without a right hand.The school principal didn’t take the news well. “How will you even play scales?” McCarthy recalled her saying, dismissively, before hanging up.Now, some 20 years later, McCarthy is set to prove anyone who doubted him wrong — and in a high-profile way. On Sunday at the Royal Albert Hall in London, McCarthy is the star name for a concert at the Proms, Britain’s most prominent classical music series.In front of thousands of spectators in the hall, as well a live TV audience, McCarthy, 36, will perform Maurice Ravel’s bravura Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, using the grand piano’s sustain pedal to elongate the bass notes while his hand leaps around the keyboard.“Ravel’s really created an aural illusion,” McCarthy said. “Everyone might be thinking, ‘Bloody hell, I’m only seeing five fingers playing, but I’m hearing so many hands.’”Nicholas McCarthy will perform Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand at the Royal Albert Hall in London on Sunday.Hayley Benoit for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Des Moines, Big Operas and Big Ambitions Fill a Tiny Theater

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      Richard Wagner may be the opera composer most associated with epic grandeur: huge orchestras, huger sets. I never imagined I’d hear a full performance of one of his works while sitting just a few feet from the singers.But Des Moines Metro Opera, a four-week summer festival founded in 1973 and running this year through July 20, has made a specialty of squeezing pieces usually done in front of thousands into a startlingly intimate space. The company’s 476-seat theater wraps the stage around the pit and juts deep into the audience, drawing even the last row into the action.At the opening of Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman” in the last week of June, the bass-baritone Ryan McKinny could brood in a murmur as the endlessly wandering captain of the title, while the choruses of raucous sailors were ear-shakingly visceral. It registered when the subtlest Mona Lisa smile crossed the face of Julie Adams as Senta, whose romantic obsession leads her to sacrifice everything for the Dutchman. Try that at the Met.Miye Bishop as the Dragonfly in “The Cunning Little Vixen,” with high-definition LED video by the designer and filmmaker Oyoram.Kathryn Gamble for The New York Times“When you first get here, it’s a little intimidating,” said the mezzo-soprano Sun-Ly Pierce, a Des Moines regular in recent years. “There’s no hiding, or even trying to. Everything is in hyper detail. Everything is in close-up.”The effect would be striking enough in Mozart or chamber opera. But the company has made a habit of putting on big, challenging works of a sort rarely if ever done in theaters so small: “Salome,” “Elektra,” “Pelléas et Mélisande,” “Billy Budd,” “Peter Grimes” and “Wozzeck,” with modest adjustments to some orchestrations, given a pit that fits about 65 musicians.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Valery Gergiev, Shunned in West Over Putin Support, Will Conduct in Italy

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      Valery Gergiev, an ally of Vladimir V. Putin, is set to conduct in Western Europe for the first time since institutions there cut ties over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Valery Gergiev, the star Russian maestro who has been shunned in the West because of his close ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, will appear this month at a festival in Italy, his first engagement in Western Europe since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.Mr. Gergiev, a staunch ally of Mr. Putin who has helped promote the president’s policies, is set to conduct on July 27 at the Royal Palace of Caserta, a historic site north of Naples, the Un’Estate da RE festival announced last week. He will lead an orchestra from Salerno, Italy, in a program featuring performers from the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, which Mr. Gergiev leads.The announcement drew protests from Italian politicians and activists, who expressed concern that Mr. Gergiev was being allowed to perform again in the West. Mr. Gergiev, whose extensive international career once made him one of the busiest maestros in the world, has been declared unwelcome in the United States and Europe since the Russian invasion.Mr. Gergiev did not respond to a request for comment.The decision to engage Mr. Gergiev also drew criticism because the festival is bankrolled by the European Union. Its funding flows, via Italy’s national government, to a company owned by the Campania region, where the festival takes place. The company funds several cultural events throughout the region, including Un’Estate da RE.Pina Picierno, a left-leaning Italian politician who serves as a vice president of the European Parliament, said that it was “unacceptable that European funds are being used to finance the performance of a Kremlin supporter.” In a post on X, she called on the festival and on regional officials “to take immediate action to prevent Valery Gergiev’s participation and ensure that taxpayers’ money does not end up in the pockets of a supporter of a criminal regime.”Vincenzo De Luca, the center-left president of the Campania region, defended the festival’s decision to engage Mr. Gergiev in a statement. He said the invitation showed that “dialogue between people can grow and the values of human solidarity can develop.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Hunt for a 316-Year-Old Stradivarius Stolen in the Fog of War

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      The violin by the famed Italian luthier was plundered at the end of World War II and presumed lost or destroyed. Now experts say they believe it has resurfaced.As Germany devolved into chaos at the end of World War II, a rare violin from the famed shop of the Italian luthier Antonio Stradivari was plundered from a bank safe in Berlin.The instrument, crafted in 1709 during the golden age of violin-making, had been deposited there years earlier by the Mendelssohn-Bohnke family as Nazi persecution put assets owned by Jews in jeopardy.For decades after the war, the family searched to no avail for the violin, known as the Mendelssohn, placing ads in magazines and filing reports with the German authorities. The violin, valued at millions of dollars, was presumed lost or destroyed.The Mendelssohn Stradivarius is shown here in black-and-white photos before it was stolen. It bears striking similarities to an instrument that passed through a New York auction house in 2000, shown here in color.Carla Shapreau; Mendelssohn-Bohnke Papers; TarisioNow, the Mendelssohn may have resurfaced. An eagle-eyed cultural property scholar, Carla Shapreau, recently came across photos from a 2018 exhibition of Stradivarius instruments in Tokyo. She spotted a violin that bore striking similarities to the Mendelssohn, though it has a different name — Stella — and creation date — 1707 instead of 1709.“My jaw dropped,” said Shapreau, a senior fellow with the Institute of European Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, who had been searching for the instrument for more than 15 years.

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