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      The Breakout Stars of 2022

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      Here are the actors, pop stars, dancers and artists who broke away from the pack this year, delighting us and making us think.For many of us, 2022 was the year we emerged more fully from our pandemic cocoons, venturing out to movie theaters, museums, concerts — exploring our entertainment with eager, if weary, hearts and eyes before returning home to our TVs. Along the way, artists and performers across the world of the arts had, for the first time in years, the chance to connect more closely and fully with audiences, and deliver big. Here are seven stars who captured our attention in this moment and gave us a fresh perspective.TelevisionQuinta BrunsonIn 2014, Quinta Brunson had a viral Instagram hit on her hands: a series of videos called “The Girl Who’s Never Been on a Nice Date.” At Buzzfeed, where she was first paid for taste-testing Doritos, she made popular comedic videos for the site and then sold the streaming series “Broke” to YouTube Red. In 2019, she starred in and wrote for the debut season of HBO’s “A Black Lady Sketch Show.”That trajectory set her up to deliver a rare feat: a warmhearted but not saccharine network sitcom with a pitch-perfect ensemble cast that has managed to delight critics and audiences — all while illuminating the problems of underfunded public schools. The mockumentary-style comedy, “Abbott Elementary,” which she created and stars in, debuted on ABC in December 2021 and was nominated for seven Emmy Awards this year, of which it won three.“I think a lot of people are enjoying having something that is light and nuanced,” Brunson, 32, told The New York Times Magazine earlier this year. “‘Abbott’ came at the right time.”MoviesStephanie HsuIn “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” Stephanie Hsu plays a despairing daughter named Joy and the chaos-inducing villain Jobu Tupaki.A24When Stephanie Hsu was a child, she told her mother that she wanted to be an actor. Her mother “pointed at a TV screen and said, ‘There’s nobody that looks like you — that seems impossible,’” Hsu, 32, told Variety this year. Turns out, her presence onscreen was both possible and unforgettable, particularly her jaw-dropping performance in this year’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” a mind-twisting acid trip through the multiverse (and the human condition) that was a box-office hit and had critics raving.In “Everything,” her first feature film, Hsu nailed the complex role of both a depressed, despairing daughter (opposite Michelle Yeoh as her mother) and the maniacally evil, chaos-inducing villain Jobu Tupaki.“I think it’s so rare that you get to experience the scope of range within one character in one movie,” Hsu told The Times.Next up for the actress is a role in the Disney+ action-comedy series “American Born Chinese”; in Rian Johnson’s Peacock series, “Poker Face,” alongside Natasha Lyonne; and in “The Fall Guy,” an action movie starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt.Pop MusicJack HarlowThe rapper Jack Harlow, who released the album “Come Home the Kids Miss You” in May, earned three Grammy nominations in November.Eduardo Munoz/ReutersThose on TikTok probably first caught wind of the rapper Jack Harlow in 2020 with his viral track “Whats Poppin.” But it wasn’t until his verse on Lil Nas X’s “Industry Baby” last year — the song topped the Billboard Hot 100 — that his star really began its ascent.Now, the laid-back Harlow, 24 and a Kentucky native, had his first solo No. 1 hit, the Fergie-sampling “First Class,” from his second major-label album, “Come Home the Kids Miss You,” which dropped in May. In November, he earned three Grammy nominations, including for best rap album. And in October, he served as both host and musical guest on “Saturday Night Live.”“I’m looking to get away from rapping in a way where people can marvel at it and more something we can all enjoy together,” he told The Times this year.Soon, Harlow will star in a remake of the 1992 film “White Men Can’t Jump.”ArtTiona Nekkia McCloddenThe artist Tiona Nekkia McClodden in her studio; she had three major presentations of her work in New York this year.Hannah Price for The New York TimesOver the last few years, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, 41, “has emerged as one of the most singular artists of our aesthetically rich, free-range time,” Roberta Smith, co-chief art critic of The Times, wrote in her review of McClodden’s exhibition “Mask/Conceal/Carry,” a meditation on guns shown at 52 Walker in TriBeCa this year. Smith called it a “brooding beast of an exhibition, bathed in blue light.”And that was only one of three major presentations of McClodden’s work in New York in 2022. At the Museum of Modern Art, she presented a room-size fetish-themed tribute to Brad Johnson, a Black gay poet who died in 2011. At the Shed, she celebrated the groundbreaking 1983 festival Dance Black America with a program that included custom dance floors and video portraits of dancers.McClodden, who was a star of the 2019 Whitney Biennial (she won the Bucksbaum Award), emerged as a filmmaker before expanding to boundary-pushing art installations.Amid the pandemic and the George Floyd protests and counter protests, she decided to learn how to shoot guns, an activity that bore “Mask/Conceal/Carry.” “The statement is that I’m in the world, I didn’t try to run away from my position in this world, and I wanted to be able to defend myself,” she told The Times this summer.TheaterJulie BenkoA scene from the Broadway musical “Funny Girl” with Jared Grimes, left, as Eddie Ryan and Julie Benko as Fanny Brice.Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade, 2022Few can say they’ve seized an opportunity like Julie Benko, whose monthlong summer run as Fanny Brice in the Broadway revival of “Funny Girl” changed a lot for the actress-soprano who stepped into the role full-time between Beanie Feldstein and Lea Michele in the highly talked-about production. But even that degree of pressure didn’t weigh her down.“When you get the chance to play such an amazing role, there’s no need to take it too seriously,” Benko told the Times. “You just have to enjoy it.” Now, Benko has the title of “alternate” in “Funny Girl,” not “understudy,” performing the lead in most Thursday night shows (with an extra performance on Monday, Dec. 26, and for a full week in late February).Benko, 33, had understudied several roles before “Funny Girl,” including in the national “Spring Awakening” tour in 2008, and later in the “Les Misérables” tour, where she worked her way up to Cosette, the protagonist, from roles like “innkeeper’s wife.”In December, she will be performing at 54 Below in New York alongside her husband, the pianist Jason Yeager.Classical MusicDavóne TinesThe bass-baritone Davóne Tines performs a scene in “Monochromatic Light (Afterlife)” by Tyshawn Sorey at the Park Avenue Armory.Jeenah Moon for The New York Times“No one could accuse Davóne Tines of lacking ambition,” Oussama Zahr, a classical music critic, wrote recently in The Times when reviewing “Recital No. 1: MASS,” the bass-baritone’s personal and thoughtfully arranged Carnegie Hall debut“I really like structures,” Tines, who is in his mid-30s, told The New Yorker of “MASS” last year. “The ritualistic template of the Mass is a proven structure — centuries of culture have upheld it. Anything that I put into it will assume a certain shape. And what I put into it is my own lived experience.”Accolades for Tines have been mounting, including for, this fall, his performance in a staged version of Tyshawn Sorey’s “Monochromatic Light (Afterlife),” at the Park Avenue Armory; and for “Everything Rises,” his collaboration with the violinist Jennifer Koh, which opened at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.In the work, Tines and Koh recount their complicated relationships with classical music as people of color. “I was the moth, lured by your flame,” Tines sings. “I hated myself for needing you, dear white people: money, access and fame.”DanceCatherine HurlinThe ballerina Catherine Hurlin, who was recently promoted to principal dancer at American Ballet Theater, in “Of Love and Rage,” by Alexei Ratmansky at the Metropolitan Opera House.Julieta Cervantes for The New York TimesShe may only be 26, but the ballerina Catherine Hurlin has been ascending for more than half of her life. As a girl, she secured a full scholarship to the American Ballet Theater’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School. Not long after, she became an apprentice with the A.B.T., then a member of the corps de ballet and eventually a soloist in 2018.Then this summer, she was one of three dancers promoted to the role of principal.“The simple serenity of Hurlin’s face, framed by cascading curls, is riveting, as is the daring amplitude of her expressive, singular dancing,” Gia Kourlas, the dance critic of The Times, wrote in June of Hurlin’s performance in Alexei Ratmansky’s “Of Love and Rage.”And in July, when Hurlin made her debut in the double role of Odette-Odile in “Swan Lake,” Kourlas called her “the future of Ballet Theater, the kind of dancer who has a fresh take on story ballets.”Her nickname? Hurricane. More

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      Notable Boxed Sets of 2022: Pop, Rap, Soul, Jazz and More

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      Anniversary editions (from Norah Jones and Neil Young), a dive into the hip-hop underground (via C.V.E.) and rediscovered live jazz (from Elvin Jones and Charles Mingus) arrived in 2022.In the archives of recorded music — and now video — there’s always more to discover (or exploit). This year’s boxed sets revisit blockbuster albums and go nationwide with local scene stars. The New York Times has already featured some major archival collections from bands like the Beatles, Blondie and Wilco. Here are more deep dives.Albert Ayler, ‘Revelations’(Elemental Music; four CDs or download, $58)Albert Ayler’s mid-60s work, once controversial, is now jazz canon. But the later phase of the saxophone radical’s brief career, when he experimented with funk and blues, and incorporated vocals from his partner Mary Maria Parks, is still overlooked. This set, the first complete issue of two July 1970 concerts at the French modern-art center the Fondation Maeght, expands prior versions by more than two hours — and makes a strong case that Ayler was in peak form here, just months before his death at age 34. On the ballad-like “Spiritual Reunion,” he caresses and adorns a prayerful melody atop gorgeous accompaniment from the pianist Call Cobbs, making even his quavering shrieks on the horn sound loving, while on “Desert Blood,” Ayler, the bassist Steve Tintweiss and the drummer Allen Blairman artfully frame a Parks song before embarking on an improvisation that suggests a softer yet still-incandescent version of the flame the saxophonist lit on his early classics. HANK SHTEAMERThe Beach Boys, ‘Sail On Sailor — 1972’(Capitol; six CDs, $150; five LPs and 7-inch EP, $179.98)1972 was a year of upheaval for the Beach Boys. Brian Wilson, the group’s mastermind, had grown withdrawn, leaving most of the songwriting to the other band members while Carl Wilson largely took over production. Two South African musicians, Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar, officially joined the band. The two Beach Boys albums that were completed in 1972, “Carl and the Passions — ‘So Tough’” and “Holland” — still got their singles (“Marcella” and “Sail On, Sailor”) from Brian Wilson. But the other members’ broad and sometimes confused ambitions were clear in songs with elaborate structures and lyrics about topics like spirituality and colonial genocide — determinedly grown-up songs, not would-be hits. The much expanded boxed set includes an exhilarating full-length 1972 Carnegie Hall concert, songs in progress, a cappella mixdowns and a worthy, much-bootlegged “Holland” outtake, “Carry Me Home,” that laments mortality with lush harmonies. JON PARELESC.V.E., ‘Chillin Villains: We Represent Billions’(Nyege Nyege Tapes; LP, $20)The unrelenting weirdness of the Los Angeles hip-hop underground in the mid-1990s gave birth to an almost unending variety of techniques and characters. Among the most signature was C.V.E. — Chillin Villains Empire — a relatively unheralded crew affiliated with the fertile scene at the Good Life Café. This anthology collects songs from 1993 to 2003, some released and some not, that show off just how experimental C.V.E.’s primary members Riddlore?, NgaFsh and Tray-Loc were. With their bizarre cadences, unusual word pairings and unexpectedly punchy storytelling, they sound like close cousins to the freaky styles of Freestyle Fellowship, the scene’s pre-eminent eccentrics. JON CARAMANICAGuns N’ Roses, ‘Guns N’ Roses — Use Your Illusion I & II Super Deluxe’(UME/Geffen; 12 LPs, one Blu-ray and a book $499.98; seven CDs, one Blu-ray and a book $259.98)In 1991, no band was bigger than Guns N’ Roses, and on the two albums it released that year, “Use Your Illusion I” and “II,” it showed. Here was a group grappling with ambition using several different, sometimes competing tactics — songs that had the feverish intensity of metal, songs that touched on politics, songs that ran nine minutes long. These multiplatinum albums are epically unkempt, for better and worse — it doesn’t get much blowzier, and it doesn’t get much more rollicking, or arrestingly melodramatic. This doorstopper release is a sprawling boxed set for a sprawling pair of albums (remastered for the first time from the original stereo masters). There’s a book rich with ephemera, oodles of trinkets, recordings of two live shows, and a Blu-ray of one of those: from a bruising, chaotic jam at the Ritz in New York in 1991, a warm-up show for the Use Your Illusion Tour (even though the group hadn’t yet finished recording the albums). For capturing this era of this band, this excess is appropriate, but also telling. Implosion was around the corner — these albums would be the last full-length releases of original music it would put out for 17 years. CARAMANICAElvin Jones, ‘Revival: Live at Pookie’s Pub’(Blue Note; digital album, $12.99 to $17.98; two CDs, $29.98; three LPs, $54,98; three LPs and test pressing, $224.98)Elvin Jones’s elemental brand of swing, bashing yet balletic, propelled John Coltrane’s band for five magical years in the early to mid-60s. As Coltrane’s music grew more abstract, and, according to Jones, “hectic,” the drummer took his leave in 1966. The New York club gigs documented on “Revival” — recorded the following year, less than two weeks after Coltrane’s death — play like a manifesto of the bandleading philosophy that would define the rest of Jones’s lengthy career: Assemble a sturdy group — here featuring the saxophonist and flutist Joe Farrell; the obscure pianist Billy Greene, with Larry Young subbing on one tune; and the bassist Wilbur Little — put together a well-balanced set list of standards and originals and get down to business. Jones’s turbulent drive on Farrell’s “13 Avenue B” and way-behind-the-beat lope during “On the Trail” demonstrate why many consider him jazz percussion’s all-time heavyweight champ. SHTEAMERNorah Jones, ‘Come Away With Me (20th Anniversary)’(Blue Note; three CDs, $39.98; four LPs, $179.98)The hushed jazz-country-folk-pop amalgam of “Come Away With Me,” the debut album that became a blockbuster for Norah Jones, didn’t come out of nowhere. She had to home in on it along a winding path that led through music school, New York City jazz-brunch gigs that people talked through, homesickness for country music from her childhood in Texas, demos she made with songwriter friends in New York City and all-star recording sessions in a mountainside mansion near Woodstock, N.Y. Those sessions, rejected by Blue Note Records before Jones tried again with her friends and made her hit album, are unveiled on the expanded reissue of “Come Away,” and they reveal an artist quietly finding her own voice: one of elegant modesty. The rejected sessions, newly released, offer a lesson in musical chemistry. With musicians who were skillful but not her regular collaborators, Jones both deferred too much to her better-known accompanists and pushed her voice a little too hard. Although there are luminous moments, like her versions of Horace Silver’s “Peace” and Tom Waits’s “Picture in a Frame,” the results were capable but not quite right. PARELESPeggy Lee, ‘Norma Deloris Egstrom From Jamestown, North Dakota (Expanded Edition)’(Capitol; CD, $13.98)Peggy Lee aficionados know that one of the hidden gems in her vast discography is her 40th record, and her last for her longtime label Capitol, “Norma Deloris Egstrom From Jamestown, North Dakota.” (Yes, that’s Lee’s civilian name and her place of birth.) “Norma” is a mature work, born of the same lived-in ennui that had made “Is That All There Is?” an unexpected hit in 1969, when Lee was almost 50. “Norma” flew under the radar and remained out of print for decades, but half a century after its initial release, it can at last be properly appreciated. It is a stirring and remarkably melancholic album that gives voice to grief and isolation through Lee’s wrenching performances of “It Takes Too Long to Learn to Live Alone” and “Superstar,” at the time a recent hit for the Carpenters. Artie Butler’s arrangements are sublime, giving Lee’s anguish plenty of dramatic flourish. The seven bonus tracks are illuminating if not revelatory, largely alternate vocal takes, though Lee’s poignant song from the 1972 movie “Snoopy Come Home” is included. The rerelease’s main aim, though, is not to excavate old material but to introduce new listeners to “Norma Deloris Egstrom,” and one of her great works. LINDSAY ZOLADZGalcher Lustwerk, ‘100% Galcher’(Ghostly International; CD, $14; two LPs, $27)The most rewarding aspect of “100% Galcher,” the breakout mix by the house music producer Galcher Lustwerk, is its utter patience. On tracks like “I Neva Seen” and “Enterprise,” it’s clear the body is in motion, but there’s an overlay of deep soothing and pensiveness, an almost new age energy. This decade-old mix, which had its premiere in the Blowing Up the Workshop series in 2013 and is completely made up of his original productions, is being properly reissued as individual tracks for the first time now. It’s womb-like and astral, and Lustwerk’s talk-raps, which he casually ladles throughout, are like reassuring commands. CARAMANICACharles Mingus, ‘The Lost Album From Ronnie Scott’s’(Resonance Records; three CDs, $29.99; three LPs, $74.99)The Charles Mingus sextet featured on these two beautifully captured 1972 live sets from the venerable London club Ronnie Scott’s, intended for official release but shelved because of label limbo, was only intact for a brief stretch. But its chemistry rivals that of the bassist’s greatest groups. On a stunning 35-minute version of the “Mingus Ah Um” classic “Fables of Faubus,” the drummer Roy Brooks and the under-documented pianist John Foster skillfully steer the band between playful abstraction and crackling swing, while on the then-new “Mind-Readers’ Convention in Milano (AKA Number 29),” the saxophonists Charles McPherson and Bobby Jones and the trumpeter Jon Faddis show how fully they’d internalized Mingus’s signature blend of ornate writing and joyous collective improv. SHTEAMERNeu!, ‘50!’(Groenland; four CDs, $54.99; five LPs, $129.99)Among the creators of kosmiche, a.k.a. krautrock, Neu! was probably the most anti-pop of all. Alongside Can, Faust and Kraftwerk — which included the founders of Neu!, Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger, in an early lineup — Neu! embraced repetition, drones, found-sound noise and studio collaging, creating music in the early 1970s that would influence punk and industrial rock very soon afterward: sometimes raucous, sometimes meditative. The vinyl box collects the three Neu! studio albums from the 1970s; the CD collection also includes “Neu! 86,” which sounded less radical and more jovial, but still contentious. Both sets add a group of newly recorded tributes and remixes from fans including the National and Mogwai — who, try as they might, can’t quite sound as austere or cantankerous as Neu! in its prime, though Idles and Man Man come close. PARELESNancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood, ‘Nancy & Lee’(Light in the Attic; CD, $14; LP, $27; cassette, $12; 8-track, $35)After last year’s excellent Nancy Sinatra compilation “Start Walkin’ 1965-1976” comes the first official reissue of what is perhaps the highlight of her discography: the beloved 1968 duet album she made with her frequent collaborator Lee Hazlewood. Lush, cinematic and alluringly strange, “Nancy & Lee” still possesses every bit of its oddball charm; more than 50 years on, it makes the argument not only for Hazlewood’s boundless imagination as a producer, but for Sinatra’s open-mindedness and risk-taking, as she followed Hazlewood down avenues — the trippy “Some Velvet Morning,” for one — less adventurous pop stars would have avoided. The bonus material is scant, but fun: a lounge-y, sultry take on the Kinks’ “Tired of Waiting for You” and a hammy rendition of the Mickey & Sylvia hit “Love Is Strange.” Of their enduring, opposites-attract sonic chemistry, Sinatra quips in a lively new interview included in the liner notes, “We used to call it beauty and the beast!” ZOLADZ‘John Sinclair Presents Detroit Artists Workshop’(Strut; download, $9.99; CD, $13.99; two LPs, $26)The MC5 manager and White Panther co-founder John Sinclair steps into the role of smooth-voiced jazz D.J. on the intro track to this compilation, the first sampling of live recordings from the archives of the Detroit Artists Workshop, a collective he helped start in 1964 to present local concerts and poetry events. The set, which encompasses 1965 through 1981, features nationally recognized names (including the trumpeter Donald Byrd and the saxophonist Bennie Maupin, both heard in righteously funky settings), but it’s the local luminaries who make this an essential document of a regional scene. The pianist and longtime Supremes musical director Teddy Harris combines big-band-style horns and a hard-grooving R&B rhythm section on “Passion Dance”; the Detroit Contemporary 4 serves up elegant, impassioned post-bop on “Three Flowers”; and the organist Lyman Woodard’s Organization digs into fierce jazz-funk in 5/4 time on “Help Me Get Away.” SHTEAMER‘The Skippy White Story: Boston Soul 1961-1967’(Yep Roc; CD, $15.99; LP, $24.99)Beginning in the early 1960s, Skippy White was — and still remains — an all-purpose cheerleader for Boston’s soul and gospel music scenes: record store proprietor, radio D.J., and when necessary, record label owner and producer. This anthology of long-lost sides captures just a little bit of the music he helped usher into the world, and is accompanied by an extensive historical essay on White’s life and career by Noah Schaffer and Eli (Paperboy) Reed. White’s sonic interests were wide-ranging — there’s dizzying doo-wop from Sammy and the Del-Lards, and also a stretch of intriguing gospel singles including Crayton Singers’s desperate, almost unsteady “Master on High.” That rawness is there, too, on “Do the Thing” by Earl Lett Quartet, an instruction song for the dance floor, or maybe somewhere else. CARAMANICAHorace Tapscott, ‘The Quintet’(Mr. Bongo; download, $5; CD, $10.99; LP, $25.99)Horace Tapscott was a movement unto himself, a pianist and composer who spent decades advocating for Black artists in Los Angeles and mentoring up-and-coming musicians through his Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra. Documents of his early work are scarce, making this previously unreleased set — recorded at the same session as Tapscott’s thrilling 1969 debut, “The Giant Is Awakened” — especially noteworthy. The music sometimes recalls earlier work by East Coast piano progressives like Mal Waldron or Cecil Taylor (both heard on fine archival releases this year), but Tapscott presents his own unique agenda. On “Your Child,” one of three lengthy, equally excellent tracks here, he plays dramatic, knobby lines that sometimes spiral off into jagged shards, ‌while the alto saxophonist Arthur Blythe‌ shows off the swooping agility and strong emotional charge that would earn him wide acclaim upon his move to New York in the mid-1970s‌. SHTEAMERMarvin Tate’s D-Settlement, ‘Marvin Tate’s D-Settlement’(American Dreams; three CDs, $30; four LPs, $75; four clear vinyl LPs, $85)Marvin Tate, who got his start as a slam-poetry champion, channeled his storytelling skills and multifarious voice — singing, preaching, narrating, taunting, shouting — into D-Settlement, a far-reaching band whose reputation should have extended well beyond its Chicago hometown during the 1990s and early 2000s. This boxed set collects the three albums D-Settlement made before breaking up in 2003, revealing a musical collective that easily vamped its way toward funk, rock, jazz, blues, gospel, reggae, punk, cabaret and more. Tate’s lyrics and delivery could be ferociously direct or sardonically barbed, as D-Settlement’s songs confronted poverty, racism and violence even as they summoned the joys of family and community — echoed in the communal improvisations of an ever exploratory band. PARELESNeil Young, ‘Harvest (50th Anniversary Edition)’(Reprise; deluxe CD boxed set, $49.98; deluxe LP boxed set, $149.98)The mythos of Neil Young’s fourth solo album still looms large in the popular imagination. “Harvest” is the record he made in retreat from fame at his newly acquired rustic Northern California ranch; thanks to its blockbuster success and its No. 1 hit “Heart of Gold,” it subsequently made Young even more uncomfortable with fame than ever before. Fans looking for a trove of demos or unreleased recordings may be slightly disappointed with this 50th anniversary edition, as it contains only three studio outtakes (“Bad Fog of Loneliness,” “Journey Through the Past” and “Dance Dance Dance”) all of which have been floating around in some variation for years. What makes the set worth it, though, are the DVDs, especially “Harvest Time,” a two-hour documentary (directed by Young’s alter ego, Bernard Shakey) that serves as an indelible time capsule of the record’s creation. Also fantastic is the 1971 BBC television recording, included in audio and video versions, of a solo Young, in especially fine voice, debuting some of his works in progress — and a stunned studio audience hearing “Old Man” and “Heart of Gold” for the first time. ZOLADZ More

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      Around New York, Different Ways of Hearing Handel’s ‘Messiah’

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      Two performances, at Trinity Church Wall Street and the New York Philharmonic, were similar yet showed how beauty emerges in divergence.We have arrived at that point in the holiday season when it seems as though you could attend a different performance of Handel’s “Messiah” every few days.On Friday and Saturday, the Trinity Baroque Orchestra and the Choir of Trinity Wall Street returned to their newly restored home, Trinity Church Wall Street, for their first “Messiah” there since 2018. The fresh stained-glass facade, illuminated from within, shined like a beacon to concertgoers approaching from down the street. Inside, the narrow nave seemed to huddle everyone together for a communal purpose.A few days later, on Tuesday, the New York Philharmonic, joined by the Handel and Haydn Society, began a five-day “Messiah” run at its own recently remodeled home, David Geffen Hall. The lobby — conceived as a gathering space with seating areas, a bar and furnishings so mundane they must have been designed to be unintimidating — bustled with audience members and laptop users. Poinsettias lined the brightly lit stage in the auditorium.The venues did more than set a mood; they participated in the performance. Each one’s distinctive acoustics complemented the ensemble’s style. If Trinity felt more immersive, and the Philharmonic more pro forma, they both offered memorable qualities that made a case for the city’s annual “Messiah” abundance.The Trinity players were performing “Messiah” in their home venue for the first time since 2018.Calla KesslerIn the coming days, the festivities accelerate. Kent Tritle leads two ensembles in “Messiah” at Carnegie Hall: on Monday, the Oratorio Society of New York, which takes a cast of hundreds approach with its massive choir; and on Dec. 21, Musica Sacra, which uses Baroque bows to add a dash of period style. The National Chorale will rent Geffen Hall for a participatory “sing-in” on Sunday. And there are free “Messiah” singalongs at Christ Church Riverdale in the Bronx on Saturday, and “Hallelujah” flash mobs around Midtown Manhattan on Dec. 21.Trinity, which offered one of the first performances of “Messiah” in New York, in 1770, and the Philharmonic, whose founder conducted its first full concert in the city, can both lay claim to a piece of the work’s history. This season, both had the advantage of a Baroque-music specialist at the helm, with Andrew Megill at Trinity and Masaaki Suzuki at the Philharmonic. They even used the same performing edition from Oxford University Press.But beauty emerged in the places where they diverged.Trinity’s period-instrument ensemble and choir produce a light, precise, nimble sound that gains warmth and richness in the church’s acoustic. At Saturday’s performance, which was livestreamed, the use of an organ, played by Avi Stein, as opposed to a harpsichord, provided a mellow, cloudlike underlay. The string players rendered every flourish as fresh arcs of sound.The countertenor Reginald Mobley, front, at David Geffen Hall, where Masaaki Suzuki led the New York Philharmonic in “Messiah.”Chris LeeTo get a sense of just how well-drilled Trinity’s choir is, you can strip away the church acoustic by watching a video of its 2019 “Messiah,” conducted by Julian Wachner at St. Paul’s Chapel while its home church was being renovated. In the chorus “And he shall purify,” taken at a breakneck yet sprightly pace, the notes tumble evenly in time.The Philharmonic uses modern instruments whose boldness gains clarity in the clean resonance of its new auditorium. In the opening Symphony, the players sliced through the air with dramatic fervor, their trills landing a little heavily in Suzuki’s stately tempo. The harpsichord, folded into the texture, emitted an appealingly gentle tinkle. Over the course of the evening, though, Suzuki’s tempos lagged, and the players seemed to meander through the music unless it had theatrical flair — common in Handel’s operas, but rare here.Where Trinity’s choir prizes dexterity, the choristers of the Handel and Haydn Society make evocative use of timbral contrast. In “And he shall purify,” the choral sections stacked atop one another in staggered entrances that amassed into a smoothly luxuriant texture. “For unto us a child is born” was a marvel of color: The tenors offered a sense of wonder; the altos, excitement; the basses, appreciation; the sopranos, confidence.The baritone Jonathon Adams made a singular Philharmonic debut. Adams, who identifies as two-spirit — the term used by Indigenous communities for those who are nonbinary — did not put on airs. Dressed humbly in loose black clothes, they sometimes hunched over their score, almost crumpling into it, before opening their mouth to reveal a magnificently sonorous timbre. Adams enunciated words like a deep-toned voice-over artist and used classic Handelian word painting in the aria “The people that walked in darkness,” adopting a shadowy tone before opening up into resplendent high notes on the word “light.” This was good old-fashioned oratorio style, in which singing is an elevated form of recitation.For its “Messiah,” the Philharmonic was joined by the Handel and Haydn Society chorus.Chris LeeThe Philharmonic’s other soloists included the soprano Sherezade Panthaki, who scrupulously shaped her music by approaching top notes with a diminuendo. In slow passages, the countertenor Reginald Mobley spun a gossamer sound that frayed at faster tempos. The tenor Leif Aruhn-Solén, whose glimmering voice didn’t cut in any register, showed questionable taste in ornaments, dynamic contrast and his pantomime of the text.Trinity doled out Handel’s solos to the members of its choir. Many of them, with vocal techniques built for tonal blend and rhythmic precision in a chorus, favored a straight tone that gleamed like white light but also exposed waywardness in pitch. Still, period style doesn’t mean stilted: Some of the singing in the more fiery arias was positively gutsy. Male altos, who created an intriguing softness within the aural fabric of the chorus, contributed solos so subtle they almost evaporated. The soprano Shabnam Abedi showed lovely warmth in “How beautiful are the feet”; and the bass-baritone Brian Mextorf had a light, handsome tone in “The trumpet shall sound.”Trinity would appear to have the more heartfelt and historically informed performance but for one moment at the Philharmonic: As the audience in Geffen Hall stood in respectful attention for the exalted music of “Hallelujah,” Adams could be seen at the side of the stage, singing heartily with the bass section.As Clifford Bartlett, the editor of the Oxford edition, noted in his introduction to the score, the soloists in Handel’s time likely sang the choruses as well. I couldn’t hear Adams, but I shared the reaction of their fellow soloists, who appeared both delighted and disarmed by Adams’s sincerity of expression — a reminder that “Messiah,” after all the variance in instrumentation, style and performance practice, is an act of community. More

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      Best Arts Photos of 2022

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      These are the images that defined a remarkable time across the worlds of art, music, dance and performance.Sinna Nasseri photographed Weird Al, left, and Daniel Radcliffe at a playground in Lower Manhattan in August before the release of their biopic, “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.”Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesCulture comes to life through a progression of ideas and images: Artists create works, and our photographers then capture these creators and their offerings — in turn creating photography that shares with us moments of intimacy we wouldn’t otherwise witness. Over the past year, photo editors at The New York Times have commissioned thousands of photographs of the movie stars, choreographers, opera singers, musicians and artists who made memorable contributions to the cultural world.In one frame by Chantal Anderson, the actor Caleb Landry Jones sips from a coffee mug at his kitchen counter, last night’s dishes piled high in the sink, as sunlight pours in from the window above. In another, Rosie Marks gives us an inside look at Charo being Charo: working out at home, full hair and makeup, in a gym frozen in time. In Michael Tyrone Delaney’s photograph of Awol Erizku, the artist stands before his work, his gaze set on his toddler. It’s an image that speaks to both his personal relationship with his child and his art’s relationship to her.Together, these photographs capture a narrative about a year in the arts, building a collection of evolving scenes and inner worlds. We asked some of the photographers to discuss the intentions behind these frames and the stories they saw within them. Now that the year is coming to a close, take one more look back at how we saw culture this year. — JOLIE RUBEN, senior photo editorDecember 2021When it comes to comedies, “I don’t get cast in them,” Nicole Kidman told The New York Times late last year about her role as Lucille Ball in the film “Being the Ricardos.” That might be the result of a career spent in dramas or “it might be my personality, too.”Jody Rogac for The New York TimesJanuary“Authentic Selves: The Beauty Within,” the countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo’s New York Philharmonic festival, was a self-portrait of the musician, who is also an impresario and a community organizer. “I’m not interested in any artist because of their fame,” he told The Times.Erik Tanner for The New York TimesI like to think about this portrait of Anthony Roth Costanzo in the spirit of early stage plays, a sort of dollar-store version of world building, where rudimentary means of expression invite the smoke and mirrors to be an active part of the world rather than obscure it. I created a stage set as a field of flowers in a perpetual state of bending in the wind. The twine that suspends the flowers was both practical but also meant to dispel any illusion of the wind being real; showing my cards, as it were.— Erik Tanner“When I look back, I don’t remember it as suffering,” Penélope Cruz said of playing Janis in “Parallel Mothers,” because “for me, she was alive.” The film was her seventh collaboration with the director Pedro Almodóvar.Camila Falquez for The New York TimesThe Broadway veteran Kenneth Ard and the jazz vocalist Kat Edmonson were cast in “The Hang,” a jazz opera from the performer Taylor Mac.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesThe way that Kat Edmonson draped her arm over Kenneth Ard’s, the way that his body lay back on this stool, the texture of the stool, the color of their costumes, the lighting overhead and the fog from the smoke machine. As a queer person, it felt like a metaphor for how it feels to walk out of the closet: It’s like an exhale, an aha moment where everything has meaning, feels connective and lush, but only if you allow yourself to experience it in that way. — Justin J WeeFebruaryTo play a superstar at a vulnerable moment in the rom-com “Marry Me,” Jennifer Lopez said, “I had to remind myself in this movie that this was actually a safe place to let those feelings out.”Chantal Anderson for The New York Times“It’s so in my bones,” Beanie Feldstein said of playing Fanny Brice in “Funny Girl” on Broadway. “I used to run around the house in my pajamas screaming ‘Don’t Rain on My Parade,’ pretending my dog was the tugboat.”OK McCausland for The New York TimesI brought the flowers as a prop for Beanie. Yellow roses, as featured in “Funny Girl” the movie, starring Barbra Streisand. I wanted to evoke the idea of a torch being passed. — OK McCauslandThe dancer and choreographer Angela Trimbur (squatting) champions low-stakes, accessible and intuitive movement. Dancing, she said, “is the way that I talk to myself.”Cait Oppermann for The New York Times“I wanted this work to focus on joy and celebration and love,” said the choreographer Kyle Abraham of his evening-length work “An Untitled Love,” set to songs by D’Angelo.Lelanie Foster for The New York TimesAs a former dancer and D’Angelo fan, I was inspired by these two worlds of dance and R&B. I only asked Kyle if he could improvise a little bit for me. Soon enough I was in the midst of an intimate solo performance in the BAM lobby. — Lelanie FosterSam Waterston, best known for “Law & Order,” began his career on the stage but soon branched into TV and film, taking on drama and comedy. “I’ve always wanted to prove that I can do all kinds of things,” he said.Mark Sommerfeld for The New York TimesJerry Saltz, New York magazine’s senior art critic, and a figurine of himself. He was photographed for an essay by the New York Times movie critic A.O. Scott about the physical objects of our pop culture obsessions.Daniel Arnold for The New York TimesMarchThe Spanish pop singer Rosalía smashed together new sounds from the Latin world and beyond on her latest album, “Motomami.” “I just want to hear something I haven’t heard before,” she said.Carlos Jaramillo for The New York TimesThe guitarist, singer, actress and comedian Charo has felt underestimated “all the time, all the time,” she said. “But it never gave me a complex. I have fun. As long as people enjoy it, I don’t care. Because once I have that, I have the power of the stage.”Rosie Marks for The New York TimesI wanted to capture the slight chaos of Charo at home on her compound. There is a lot going on in the frame: the artificial grass carpet, the rusty weights, the old TV, a missing piece of the mirror — and then her in the middle, wearing a bright yellow outfit right out of an ’80s workout video, with hair and makeup that could be taken right out of one of her sold-out Vegas shows. She insisted we stay after the shoot and served up several cheese and meat platters. — Rosie MarksSand in Death Valley, Calif., was manipulated in different ways for the soundscape of “Dune,” Denis Villeneuve’s film based on Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi novel.Peter Fisher for The New York TimesI watched “Dune” three times before heading to this shoot, taking notes on my yellow legal pad each time. The sound engineers did such an incredible job immersing the audience in this alien world, I wanted the images to at least attempt to do the same thing, like we were reporting from the surface of Arrakis. — Peter FisherThe vocalist, flutist and producer Melanie Charles singing at a rehearsal in her Brooklyn home. Her music uses electronics and calls for something heavier than an upright bass. “Musicians like me and my peers, we need some bump on the bottom,” she said.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesInstead of trying to separate different elements in the frame, sometimes I want my photograph’s different parts to connect and flow together to create shapes and lines. The neck of the bass guitar meets the circle of the bass drum, and Melanie Charles’s foot connects with the bass, which forms a diagonal line with Jonathan Michel’s finger. Melanie’s living room was inundated with music, with instruments. You get the sense that there’s not much separating her life from her music. — Sinna NasseriWith an exhibition at the Gagosian this year, Awol Erizku, above in his studio, was able to reach a broad audience. “I want to be remembered for Black imagination,” Erizku said, “to expand the limits of Black art.”Michael Tyrone Delaney for The New York TimesWalking into Awol Erizku’s studio is like walking into his mind. It’s a large warehouse, filled with striking imagery and sculptures in progress. He asked to get one photo with his daughter, Iris. A lot of his work is made with his daughter in mind. For me, this image embodies the themes of legacy building and cultivation of Black imagination. — Michael Tyrone DelaneyThe reality TV star Kourtney Kardashian and the prolific drummer Travis Barker, who got married this year, kiss on the Oscars red carpet in March.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesAprilThe actor and musician Caleb Landry Jones at his Los Angeles home. His role in the Australian drama “Nitram” earned him a top prize at Cannes.Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesBefore the Broadway debut of “Mr. Saturday Night” — a musical version of his 1992 movie about an aging performer who won’t accept that his time in the spotlight is up — Billy Crystal said, “The worst nightmare is, do you wake up one day and you’re not funny anymore?”Philip Montgomery for The New York TimesSarah Silverman during a break from rehearsals of “The Bedwetter,” about a 10-year-old Silverman who suffered from the embarrassing condition of the title. “It will be familiar to so many people,” Silverman said about how the musical explores the emotions raised by divorce.Mark Sommerfeld for The New York TimesNicolas Cage, who starred as “Nick Cage” in this year’s “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” said, “I don’t want to be one of those actors — and there are a lot of them, I won’t mention any names — who are high on their own supply.”Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesI had about 10 minutes with Nicolas Cage in a Manhattan hotel. The story was about his newest movie, which has a meta quality to it: Nic plays himself at different stages of his life. I thought a mirror would represent that well. The side of his face is the foreground, and there’s also the lesser foreground of his hand. The middle ground shows his circular reflection while the background is another reflection of Nic. And there’s a further background beyond that. The depth of this frame is a big part of its power. — Sinna NasseriAlexander Skarsgard said working on the Viking saga “The Northman” was “the greatest experience of my career but, God, it was intense.”Robbie Lawrence for The New York TimesMay“I don’t want to be a celebrity,” Ethel Cain said ahead of the May release of her debut album, “Preacher’s Daughter.”Irina Rozovsky for The New York TimesWhen I met her, Ethel Cain was living in a small house in a small town somewhere in Alabama. It was a total time warp with no obvious signs of modernity — video tapes, crocheted table settings, wood paneled walls, quilts. In this photo, we were in Ethel’s bedroom, where she sleeps and records, the microphone just a few feet from the bed. We were talking about her childhood in the church. She was lying down, and I was on my knees beside her with the camera, a pious sight in and of itself. — Irina Rozovsky“I’ve made it clear to people that I’m never going to make a record that’s the same as another,” Bad Bunny said. His fourth album, “Un Verano Sin Ti,” was a smash hit.Josefina Santos for The New York TimesMichael Che, known mostly for “Saturday Night Live,” said there had been a certain amount of trial and error in developing his own show, the HBO Max series “That Damn Michael Che,” and in figuring out his career: “Everything looks easy till you start doing it.”Andre D. Wagner for The New York TimesOne of my favorite ways to make photographs is to be out on the streets and in the world; I love playing off juxtaposition and chance encounters. Even the streets know that Michael Che is PURE GENIE-US! — Andre D. WagnerFans respond to Austin Butler, above, the way they did to a young Leonardo DiCaprio, said the “Elvis” director Baz Luhrmann.Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesAnson Boon said he “loved the intensity” of playing Johnny Rotten, the Sex Pistols frontman, in “Pistol,” a Hulu limited series.Mark Sommerfeld for The New York Times“I have spent a lot of time with different choreographers, all with different processes, so I also told myself: There are no rules,” said Janie Taylor, a former City Ballet principal, whose dances were featured in the L.A. Dance Project’s Joyce Theater season.Thea Traff for The New York TimesEach morning in Los Angeles, there’s typically a layer of fog (the “marine layer”) that clouds sunlight. We were incredibly lucky the morning of this shoot — there was no fog, only direct, beautiful California sunlight. The light was also low enough in the sky to create a beautiful shadow across half of Janie Taylor’s body. I asked her to dance in a way that felt reflective of her work, and she gave so much expression and movement in this light. — Thea Traff“My job was to capture their genius and not take shots that were superfluous,” said Marty Callner, who directed the first specials of Robin Williams, Steve Martin and George Carlin.Peter Fisher for The New York TimesLars “Bala” Lyons stands by while a red-tailed hawk (magnified by binoculars) perches above near Tompkins Square Park in New York. “For the Birds,” a star-studded, 242-track collection of songs and readings inspired by or incorporating birdsong, was released this year.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesFor this story I embedded myself with New York City’s birders — people who are obsessive about tracking birds, while the rest of us just go about our lives. I wanted to show that difference in one photo, so I split the frame by holding binoculars to the top half of my lens, which I focused on a red-tailed hawk, while the bottom half reveals a man on the ground just walking, unaware of the magnificent creature above him and the fandom surrounding the city’s birds. — Sinna NasseriWhen Oscar Isaac was offered “Moon Knight,” a Marvel series on Disney+, he wasn’t sure he was ready for another action blockbuster. “As fun as they can be, you’re outputting a lot of energy, and then you leave and you’re just exhausted,” he said.Erik Tanner for The New York TimesJuneIf the filmmaker Taika Waititi stepped back and considered all of his projects, “I’d probably have a panic attack,” he said. “I know there’s too many things.”Dana Scruggs for The New York TimesFrom left, Terry Elliott Lamont, Michael Turner Jr. and Von Williams in the McCulloh Homes public housing project, which was used as “The Pit” in “The Wire.” This year, a Baltimore photographer considered the HBO drama’s impact on the city where he was raised, 20 years after the show’s debut.Gioncarlo Valentine for The New York TimesWhen I was a kid growing up in Baltimore, I was lucky enough to have a group of queer friends. We called ourselves “The Pridelights.” The three people in this image, Terry, Michael, and Von, were among the core members of the group and, in many ways, the core of my childhood. The composition is a nod to the iconic “Destiny Fulfilled” album cover, an album that was so central to us when it was released. We fought constantly about who in our group was Beyoncé (Von and me), Kelly (Michael) and Michelle (Terry). There are almost no images of us together when we were children. Looking at this image now, it feels corrective. — Gioncarlo ValentineJuly“I wanted to build a framework for myself, for how to keep art sacred,” the singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers said of her detour to Harvard Divinity School during the pandemic. Her second major-label album, “Surrender,” was released this summer.OK McCausland for The New York TimesAugustDecades in the making, Michael Heizer’s “City,” a massive mile-and-a-half-long sculpture set in a remote Nevada valley, was finally revealed this year.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesIt is nearly impossible to distill the experience of Heizer’s magnum opus “City” in one frame. From dusk to dawn, I had the rare opportunity to wander the immense space, allowing the light to be my guide. Standing in the bitter cold, I made a handful of exposures around 10 seconds long. Seeing “City” under moonlight made me think of how humans have been building mysterious structures on this planet for thousands of years, many in relation to the heavens above. — Todd HeislerThe photographer Sinna Nasseri captured images of present-day New York City as it might have been predicted by science fiction films of the 1980s. Here, a delivery robot serves food at Lilya’s Restaurant & Grill in Staten Island, N.Y.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesAbbi Jacobson’s series version of “A League of Their Own,” on Amazon Prime Video, expanded upon the 1992 film. “The movie is a story about white women getting to play baseball,” she said. “That’s just not enough.”Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesWhat I love about Abbi Jacobson is how relatable the characters she plays are — you really feel like you know her and are friends with her from watching her. When I found out we were going to be taking photos in L.A., I thought of Art’s Delicatessen & Restaurant as the perfect place to meet up. It’s a family-owned spot you go back to over and over again with friends. There’s an intimacy and history there that I wanted in the images. — Chantal AndersonAhead of her album “Hold the Girl,” Rina Sawayama said, “I think the temptation, as an artist these days, is to look online and see what the fans want. But I’m going to write something that’s meaningful and worth people’s time.”Olivia Lifungula for The New York TimesFinishing touches underway on Wolfgang Tillmans’s retrospective, “To Look Without Fear,” at the Museum of Modern Art, which ends on New Year’s Day.Daniel Arnold for The New York TimesWolfgang Tillmans and I shot this couple melting into one viewer before a photo in his MoMA survey at the same time, he on his iPhone and me with my camera. I’m guessing his pic is better. — Daniel ArnoldSeptemberThe choreographer Gisèle Vienne at her parents’ home in Grenoble, France. She returned to New York in October with the U.S. premiere of “Crowd,” a magnetic work that places 15 dancers, consumed with love and longing, at an all-night party.Sam Hellmann for The New York TimesGisèle Vienne had given me a tour of the house, and this room was straight away my favorite. The light through the dirty windows, her mother’s sculptures, the dried plants, the floor. This was taken toward the end of the shoot so she had been dancing for a while, and it was terribly hot outside. I couldn’t tell she was sweating so much, though the flash revealed it. That’s when it began to be truly interesting. She was letting go, and I was finally becoming invisible. — Sam HellmannMoneybagg Yo has grown into the biggest rap star to emerge from Memphis in a generation.Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesMost punk shows don’t have an audience that can comfortably fit under the lip of the stage. Or fans that headbang atop the shoulders of their heavily tattooed papas. But that was the scene at a Linda Lindas show at the Bowery Ballroom in New York this summer.OK McCausland for The New York TimesThe sculptor Fred Eversley, an unheralded pioneer of the Light and Space movement, with one of his parabolic lenses that is installed on the ground floor of his five-story building in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. “I don’t like art that you have to know art history to appreciate,” he said.Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. for The New York TimesDaniel Clark Smith, a chorister, reviewed sheet music at a dress rehearsal of “Medea” at the Metropolitan Opera in Manhattan. It was the Met’s first production of the Cherubini work.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesYvonne Rainer, a giant of choreography with more than a half-century of work behind her, went out swinging with “Hellzapoppin’: What About the Bees?,” which took on themes of race and resistance.Erik Tanner for The New York TimesFrom left, the artists Coreen Simpson, Randy Williams and Lorraine O’Grady in the Founders Room of the Museum of Modern Art. Just Above Midtown, an incubator of some of the most important Black avant-garde art of the 1970s and ’80s, was the subject of an exhibition.Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. for The New York TimesToward the end of my time with the group, I came back into the darkened conference room to see them arranged in a loose circle as they shared stories. I’d technically finished photographing them, but they were so immersed in conversation and used to my presence. This particular photograph, of Lorraine O’Grady holding court, ended up being my favorite. — Elliott Jerome Brown Jr.Tyler Mitchell in his Brooklyn studio alongside test prints of images from his London exhibition. The photographer is part of a generation that’s “blending fashion into art and art into fashion,” an Aperture magazine editor said.Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. for The New York TimesAbel Selaocoe, a classically trained South African artist, is best known for his work on the cello, but is also a singer and improviser. He drew on musical traditions from across the globe for his debut album, “Where is Home (Hae Ke Kae).”Adama Jalloh for The New York TimesOctoberWhether it’s Jamie Lee Curtis’s return to her horror roots in “Halloween Ends” or her buzzy performance in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” freedom is what the actress is after. “I feel all the feels, all the time,” she said.Ryan Pfluger for The New York TimesTaking a raw Southern sound to the top of the pop charts, Lil Baby could have come only from one place: Atlanta, where the rap scene is one of the world’s most consequential musical ecosystems.Kevin Amato for The New York TimesThis year, Michael Imperioli, best known for playing crooks and cops, appeared in the comedies “This Fool” and “The White Lotus.” “I don’t really know how to be funny,” he insisted.Daniel Arnold for The New York TimesBest known for playing nice guys, Jake Lacy won acclaim as a privileged jerk in HBO’s “The White Lotus.” In the Peacock drama “A Friend of the Family,” he went even darker.Nathan Bajar for The New York TimesThe prolific choreographer Twyla Tharp told new stories with two classic works at New York City Center this fall: “In the Upper Room” and “Nine Sinatra Songs.” “I was looking for some kind of spirituality or personal redemption,” said Kaitlyn Gilliland, dancing here with Lloyd Knight.Julieta Cervantes for The New York TimesNovemberJeremy Pope, a Tony-nominated actor, segued to the big screen in the gay military drama “The Inspection.” “I feel so blessed that I’m able to do this fully in my Blackness and in my queerness,” he said.Erik Carter for The New York TimesIn the Hulu series “Fleishman Is in Trouble,” Claire Danes and Jesse Eisenberg play two halves of a splintered couple. “Playing a married person with kids, I was at greater risk of taking it home than I have been with other projects,” Danes said.Thea Traff for The New York TimesIt’s tough to pose two people in a dynamic way when they’re inclined to just stand or sit side by side facing the camera. Claire Danes and Jesse Eisenberg play a recently divorced couple in the show, so I came to set with the idea to pose them as if they were embracing or slow-dancing, in a pose that felt reflective of their characters. — Thea TraffIn the drama “Causeway,” Jennifer Lawrence played a military engineer who returns home from Afghanistan after a brain injury. It’s the kind of indie she hasn’t really starred in since her breakthrough in 2010. “I don’t know how I can act,” she said, “when I feel cut off from normal human interaction.”Robbie Lawrence for The New York TimesThe choreographer Neil Greenberg at a rehearsal of his dance “Betsy.” His beaded headpiece was inspired by a cast member’s flowing hair. “They’re a little like Las Vegas’s idea of a sheikh,” Greenberg said.Mark Sommerfeld for The New York Times“I think it’s one of the best costumes. It’s so furry and smooth and nice. But it’s also really hot,” said Eleanor Murphy, left. “I like throwing the cheese,” said Taiga Emmer. The two alternate as the Bunny in the New York City Ballet’s production of “The Nutcracker.”Erik Tanner for The New York TimesThe eminent composer Steve Reich, who is in his 80s, released two important albums and a conversations book this year. His next premiere, “Jacob’s Ladder,” is expected in fall 2023.Philip Montgomery for The New York TimesLaura Poitras’s documentary “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” tells a complex story of the photographer Nan Goldin’s personal trauma and protest. “It’s my voice telling my story with my pictures, so it has to be true to me,” said Goldin, above.Thea Traff for The New York TimesThe choreographer Katja Heitmann collects the quotidian habits and mannerisms of volunteers — how they walk, stand, kiss, sleep and fidget — for her ongoing dance project “Motus Mori” (meaning “movement that is dying out”).Melissa Schriek for The New York TimesAdditional production by More

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      Review: Klaus Mäkelä, Rising Star of Conducting, Arrives in New York

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      Klaus Mäkelä, a young yet already accomplished maestro, made his New York Philharmonic debut with a performance that prioritized clarity.Now New Yorkers know what the hype is all about.The hype, that is, around the 26-year-old Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä. He’s the fastest-rising maestro of his generation, a darling of fellow musicians and orchestra administrators alike. It seems that every time I meet with someone in the industry lately, there comes a moment in the conversation when I’m asked, “Have you heard Klaus Mäkelä?”Outside New York, it’s been hard not to. He has collected podium appointments so quickly, an ensemble as prestigious as the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam was willing to create a title, artistic partner, to keep him in reserve until he officially becomes its chief conductor in 2027. That’s when his contracts will be up at the Orchestre de Paris and the Oslo Philharmonic; already, there are whispers about where he could go next.Chances are, he will not go to the New York Philharmonic, where he made his debut on Thursday. (For those keeping track, Leonard Bernstein was just a year younger when he got his unexpected big break.) This orchestra — whose music director, Jaap van Zweden, will depart at the end of next season — needs a new conductor much sooner than Mäkelä is available. But perhaps he has a future as a frequent guest; his first outing with the Philharmonic was a promising one, under an even bigger spotlight than planned, with a program of only symphonic works after the concerto soloist, Truls Mork, withdrew because of an injury.The Philharmonic, at its most exasperating, can be a brash and unbalanced ensemble. Under Mäkelä’s baton on Friday morning, however, it was largely measured in delivering what has become, to mixed results, his trademark clarity. He brought a transparent, levelheaded approach to the emotional extremes of two Russian, B-minor symphonies premiered nearly a half-century apart — the Sixths of Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich — as well as to a contemporary work, Jimmy López Bellido’s “Perú Negro.”López Bellido is a favorite of Mäkelä’s among living composers. It’s easy to hear why; this is music that, on the surface, sounds like a successor to other works in Mäkelä’s repertoire that employ enormous orchestral forces, such as the Ballets Russes scores of Stravinsky that he will take to the Aix-en-Provence Festival next summer, or the post-Romantic symphonies of Mahler that he has toured.Unlike those, however, “Perú Negro” — premiered in 2013 as part of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra’s centennial and originally conducted by López Bellido’s friend Miguel Harth-Bedoya — thrills and entertains, but reveals itself all too readily.This piece has the hallmarks of López Bellido’s style, such as rich orchestration and maximal gesture, along with homages to the folk songs and rhythms of the Black Peruvian music that the title hints at. Although Mäkelä was up against the newly renovated David Geffen Hall’s bright acoustics in taming the Philharmonic’s sound, he led a lively account, which was met with a standing ovation.But the memory of it was quickly swept aside by the Shostakovich that followed — in particular the similarly grand, breakneck finale. There, you could hear what was lacking in “Perú Negro”: ambiguous exuberance, Janus-faced passages that misdirect and provoke, both inviting and impenetrable, forever irreconcilable. López Bellido could take a lesson from that, as someone who clearly knows how an orchestra can sound, but not necessarily what it can say.The Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky symphonies were studies in letting a score speak for itself. Whether that works is largely a matter of taste, and ensemble. I heard a similar touch in a Mahler Four that Mäkelä conducted last year in Munich; there, the cool performance didn’t deliver on the symphony’s heavenly climax. But his Mahler Six in Amsterdam this summer was a revelation of terror directly expressed.At the Philharmonic, Mäkelä kept some of the orchestra’s characteristic imbalances in check — such as the outsize sounds that rendered the winds section virtually invisible in the Beethoven Nine led by van Zweden in October — but hadn’t quite rewired the players. He did, though, manage to lend both symphonies a legible, compelling shape, if at a bit of a remove. The most evocative moments came not from the entire group but from soloists: Frank Huang’s violin fleetly galloping in the Shostakovich; Judith LeClair’s bassoon dolefully opening the Tchaikovsky; and Anthony McGill’s clarinet reprising that work’s second theme with rending sweetness.The third movement of the Tchaikovsky, a perennial audience favorite, especially benefited from Mäkelä’s lucid reading, whose transparency brought equal attention to the itinerant melodic line and the dense orchestrations surrounding it. There was a sense of what the composer might have been thinking when he wrote to his publisher, Pyotr Jurgenson, that he was “happy in the knowledge that I have written a good piece.”I found myself, though, wanting to know more than how Tchaikovsky viewed his own music. Mäkelä’s conducting was so deferential to the score, it was tempting to shake him and ask, “But what do you really think?” Classics like this symphony warrant not just recitation, but also repeated examination.Then again, it’s helpful to remember that we are talking about a 26-year-old. Who hasn’t changed drastically throughout their 20s — in life, in work, in worldview? It will be interesting, and worthwhile, to see where that growth takes Mäkelä. He has proved that he can wrangle the war horses. Now it’s time to see what else he can do.New York PhilharmonicPerformed on Friday at David Geffen Hall, Manhattan. More

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      Amid Global Turmoil, Salzburg Festival Plans a Summer of Reflection

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      “Our present reality seems to be completely out of joint with universal bonds and perspectives,” the festival’s artistic director said.With the pandemic still lingering and the war in Ukraine raging on, the Salzburg Festival in Austria announced plans on Friday for a summer season that would seek to offer space for reflection.The festival, classical music’s most storied annual event, will stage two operas based on works by William Shakespeare: “Macbeth” and “Falstaff,” both by Verdi. There are also plans for more offbeat repertoire, including Bohuslav Martinu’s “The Greek Passion,” which tells the story of a Greek village staging a Passion play, in a production led by the conductor Maxime Pascal.“Our present reality seems to be completely out of joint with universal bonds and perspectives,” Markus Hinterhäuser, the festival’s artistic director, said in an interview, quoting from “Hamlet.” “Therefore, we have constructed a festival giving artists the opportunity to address these issues directly and indirectly.”The festival will feature more than 200 events — a mix of operas, spoken drama, orchestra concerts and recitals — over six weeks beginning July 20.The festival’s house band, the Vienna Philharmonic, will perform several concerts, including “Ein Deutsches Requiem” (“A German Requiem”), an hourlong choral work by Brahms, under the conductor Christian Thielemann. Among other prominent orchestras making appearances are the Berlin Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.The mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli will star in Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice”; the conductor John Eliot Gardiner will lead a concert performance of Berlioz’s “Les Troyens,” featuring his ensemble, the Monteverdi Choir; and the soprano Renée Fleming and the pianist Evgeny Kissin team up for a recital of works by Schubert, Liszt, Rachmaninoff and Duparc.Franz Welser-Möst, the music director of the Cleveland Orchestra and a Salzburg regular, will take the baton for “Macbeth,” which opens in July, in a production by Krzysztof Warlikowski. In August, Welser-Möst will lead the Vienna Philharmonic in a concert featuring works by Ligeti and Richard Strauss.The festival will again prominently feature the conductor Teodor Currentzis, who has faced scrutiny since the start of the war in Ukraine because of his ties to a state-owned bank in Russia. He will take the baton for a concert presentation of Henry Purcell’s opera “The Indian Queen” with his new ensemble, Utopia. Currentzis will also lead Utopia in performances of Mozart’s Mass in C minor.Currentzis announced the formation of Utopia, which is backed by European benefactors, in August, after he faced a wave of criticism for his longtime association with the Russian ensemble MusicAeterna, which is sponsored by VTB Bank, a state-owned institution that has been sanctioned by the United States and other countries. (Currentzis had been trying for several years to secure funding for Utopia.)While the pandemic has wreaked havoc across the performing arts, the Salzburg Festival, drawing on government subsidies and sponsorship deals, has managed to minimize the disruption.The festival never canceled a season during the pandemic. In 2020, it staged a robust program for limited audiences, before returning to relative normalcy in 2021.Even as turnout for many classical events around the world has been tepid since the return of live performance, the Salzburg Festival continues to attract an enthusiastic audience. Attendance was 96 percent last summer, the festival said. More

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      An Opera Company’s Precarious Future Has Some Worried About a Ripple Effect

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      For a month now, politicians, newspapers and classical music stars have been arguing over the future of English National Opera. A funding cut could have repercussions far beyond Britain.LONDON — When Leigh Melrose, a rising British opera star, looked at his calendar recently, much of the next three years were blocked out for one company: English National Opera. He was signed up to sing multiple roles there, starting with the lustful dwarf Alberich in the company’s new “Ring” cycle, a coproduction with the Metropolitan Opera that was meant to head to New York.Melrose said that he’d had his wig fitting for that role, and that rehearsals for “The Rheingold,” the first installment in Wagner’s four-part epic, were scheduled to begin Dec. 28.But now, he said, all those plans seemed uncertain. Last month, Arts Council England, a body that distributes government arts funding here, announced it was shutting off a grant to English National Opera worth 12.4 million pounds a year, or about $15 million. The Arts Council instead gave the company a one-off grant to help it develop “a new business model,” including a potential move to Manchester, 178 miles north of its current home at the London Coliseum.On the same day, the Arts Council also slashed funding to other major opera companies including the Royal Opera House, by 10 percent, and Glyndebourne Productions, by over 30 percent.Melrose said those cuts came as a “total shock,” adding that the long-term future of the “Ring” in both London and New York did not look good. If the E.N.O., as English National Opera is known, had to move away from London, “How can it keep on doing the rest?” Melrose asked. “How can it carry on doing anything?”For the past month, the fate of the E.N.O. has made headlines here. Musicians, critics and politicians have been arguing over whether the decision to cut the company’s funding is a sensible response to a declining interest in opera, or an act of cultural vandalism. Concerns have spread beyond Britain, with companies in Europe and the United States warning that the global opera ecosystem may suffer, too.Protesters outside the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, a government ministry, in London, on Nov. 22.Tolga Akmen/EPA, via ShutterstockDozens of senior opera figures — including Peter Gelb, the Metropolitan Opera’s general manager, and Yuval Sharon, the artistic director of Detroit Opera — signed a recent letter to The Times of London, warning of a wider impact. “Everyone across the world has long looked to the United Kingdom as a center of artistic excellence,” the letter said. “We fear that this decision signals to the world that they — and we — must now look elsewhere.”Gelb said by phone that he had already pushed the Met’s run of the “Ring” cycle back a year, to the 2027/28 season, “for casting reasons.” But, he added, “if the E.N.O. doesn’t exist, we obviously can’t collaborate with it.”Christopher Koelsch, the chief executive of Los Angeles Opera, said that the E.N.O. had “historically been a crucible for creativity and experimentation,” noting that numerous stars including the conductor Edward Gardner, the composer Nico Muhly and the director Barrie Kosky had done early or important work at the company.Los Angeles Opera had been planning a new coproduction with the E.N.O. for its 2024/25 season, Koelsch said, though he declined to give further details and said he had not been in contact with the company since the funding cut was announced. “I think they’ve got other things to focus on,” he said.Newspaper coverage of opera in Britain is usually restricted to the arts pages, but the ferocity of debate here in recent weeks has propelled it to the front pages, and made it a major topic on social media.The company has been urging opera fans to pressure the government and the Arts Council to overturn the funding decision. More than 74,000 people have signed an online petition started by the singer Bryn Terfel.Performances at the London Coliseum have a relaxed atmosphere.Lauren Fleishman for The New York TimesGenerous policies that give free or discounted tickets to people under 35 have helped English National Opera draw in a younger crowd than the Royal Opera House.Lauren Fleishman for The New York TimesIn the last season, each ticket the company sold was propped up with about $168 of state funding.Lauren Fleishman for The New York TimesJohn Berry, who was the E.N.O.’s artistic director from 2005 to 2015, said that the company had coped with funding cuts before: In 2014, it lost a third of its government grant after failing to meet box office targets. But it would be “impossible,” he said, for the company to deal with a total loss of subsidy unless “a guardian angel” appeared. That was unlikely, given Britain lacked a culture of philanthropy, he added.Britain’s major opera companies have a unique funding model that is halfway between American companies’ reliance on philanthropy and European houses’ dependence on state funding. The E.N.O.’s Arts Council grant currently represents over a third of its income. In contrast, the Los Angeles Opera gets about 5 percent of its income from public grants; the Met, about 0.5 percent.English National Opera traces its history back to 1931, when Lilian Baylis, a theater owner, established the Sadler’s Wells Opera Company to bring the art form to popular audiences. That founding aim is still central to the company, which stages all its work in English. Those performances, at the London Coliseum, have a more relaxed atmosphere than the ones at the nearby Royal Opera House, with audience members often wearing jeans rather than tuxedos, and generous policies to give free or discounted tickets to people under 35.It made its global reputation in the 1980s when it became the first British opera company to tour the United States and debuted a host of major productions including Nicholas Hytner’s much-praised 1985 staging of Handel’s “Xerxes.” Under Berry’s leadership, the company also started to act as a test bed for productions heading to the Met, with productions of Philip Glass’s “Satyagraha,” Nico Muhly’s “Two Boys” and Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess,” among others, premiering in London before being tweaked and sent to New York.A scene from “Porgy and Bess,” which premiered at English National Opera in 2018. The production came to the Metropolitan Opera, in New York, in 2019.Tristram KentonDespite those triumphs, John Allison, the editor of Opera magazine, said in an interview that the company had recently been lurching from crisis to crisis with a string of high-profile resignations, financial difficulties and a declining number of works presented.Fewer performances meant that the Arts Council was subsidizing each E.N.O. ticket sold to a greater extent, and the company was often criticized for providing poor value for public money.A spokeswoman for the company said in an email that 90,000 people went to the company’s 63 performances last season, a figure that means each ticket was propped up with £137, or about $168, of state funding. The spokeswoman added that attendance was lower than usual that season, because of the pandemic, and that the opera reached many more people through other means, including television broadcasts seen by 2.2 million viewers.The Arts Council has defended its decision. Claire Mera-Nelson, the agency’s director of music, said in a blog post that she had seen “almost no growth in demand” for large-scale opera over the past five years, and had decided to prioritize funding for the art form “at different scales, reimagined in new ways” such as staging productions in parking lots, or pubs. Darren Henley, the Arts Council’s chief executive, wrote in The Guardian that “new ideas may seem heretic to traditionalists,” but that opera needed to reinvent itself to “remain exciting and meaningful to future generations.”On Thursday, Henley told British politicians he was having discussions with the E.N.O. over how it could keep showing work in London, as well as elsewhere in England, but added, “We can’t fund them in London.” (The Arts Council declined an interview request for this article.)While English National Opera’s future is hanging on officials’ whims, its audience seems hopeful that it will remain in London, somehow. At the Coliseum last week, before a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Yeomen of the Guard,” the atmosphere was relaxed and informal. Audience members in winter coats and bobble hats arrived on foot, rather than in sleek cars, and headed into the theater, where a merchandise stall was selling T-shirts with the slogans “Choose Opera” and “#loveENO.”Nick McConagh, 72, said he had been coming to the E.N.O. since the 1970s because its tickets were affordable. “It disproves the belief that opera is for the rich,” he said.Nearby, Hatti Simpson, 30, with pink hair and tattoos, said she fell in love with opera after taking advantage of the company’s cheap ticketing for young people. Cutting the E.N.O.’s funding and forcing it to move out of London would be “an absolute travesty,” she said.Two hours later, when the lights went down at the end of the show, the audience of nearly 2,000 applauded and cheered. After the cast had taken several bows, Neal Davies, a Welsh baritone, stepped forward and quietened the crowd for one final number. “I’m here to sing the praises of English National Op-er-a, who strive to make the medium both radical and pop-ul-ar,” he sang, to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General,”If the company did not exist “your life would be a dull-er one,” he added. That prospect, Davies bellowed, “was almost as unthinkable as Gilbert without Sul-liv-an.”The audience cheered loudly. But it was unclear if anyone outside the building was listening. More

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      Music Inspired by Notre-Dame Fire Wins a Top Prize

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      The British composer Julian Anderson won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for “Litanies,” a meditation for cello and orchestra.When a fire broke out at the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris in 2019, the British composer Julian Anderson was devastated.“Seeing a precise and beautiful and precious structure like that dissolving almost into the fire was very, very traumatizing,” he said in an interview.Anderson soon began channeling some of his despondence into “Litanies,” a 25-minute meditation for cello and orchestra. In the second movement, a series of chords emerges then melts away, echoing the disaster.On Monday, “Litanies” won the 2023 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, one of contemporary music’s most prestigious prizes. The Grawemeyer, which is administered and was announced by the University of Louisville in Kentucky, comes with $100,000.In choosing Anderson, 55, the prize paid homage to a prolific composer known for his vivid imagination. His music draws on a variety of traditions — blending folk, for example, with more modern sounds. He has won commissions from top orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.The composer Marc Satterwhite, who directs the award, praised “Litanies” for its exploration of “virtually every sound a cello and orchestra can make together.” Anderson wrote the piece for the cellist Alban Gerhardt, who premiered the work in 2020 with the National Orchestra of France.“It spans a vast emotional range and is constantly inventive,” Satterwhite said in a statement, “but always toward an expressive end, never for the sake of novelty.”Anderson completed “Litanies” in 2019, several months after the fire and a year after the death of his close friend Oliver Knussen, the influential composer and conductor.Knussen’s death also influenced the work. “There is a sense of time running out,” Anderson said of a cadenza that gradually dissipates.The Grawemeyer has been awarded to some of the most important modern composers, including Gyorgy Ligeti, John Adams, Tan Dun, Thomas Adès, Pierre Boulez, Kaija Saariaho, Olga Neuwirth and Esa-Pekka Salonen, among others. Anderson will accept the prize in Louisville in the spring.Anderson, a professor of composition and composer-in-residence at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, said that he hoped the award would help bring attention to the importance of contemporary music and live performance.“There is nothing that replaces the live experience,” he said. “The joy, the pleasure, the revelation, even, of hearing wonderful music played actually in the room with you, not just on a computer screen with headphones.” More