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- in Music
Ireland Says Goodbye to Sinéad O’Connor at Funeral Procession
In the coastal town of Bray, south of Dublin, the site of Ms. O’Connor’s last Irish home, mourners gathered to pay their respects to the singer.At the close of a life poised between tradition and rebellion, Ireland gave Sinéad O’Connor a send-off on Tuesday that embraced both.In keeping with an old Irish custom, her coffin was first carried past her last family home in Ireland, in Bray, County Wicklow.But many of those who gathered, or who left her tributes, brought a spirit more in keeping with her life as a rebel who took on the establishment — most notably the Roman Catholic Church — and who spoke up for the oppressed. Among the signs left in front of her family home was one that read “BLACK LIVES MATTER,” “GAY PRIDE” and “REFUGEES WELCOME.”At noon, the cortege reached Ms O’Connor’s former home on Bray’s seaside promenade. The crowd broke into prolonged applause, with some raising fists in salute. Many were in tears. Earlier, as thousands of people waited for her cortege to pass alongside the small town’s seaside promenade, a classic Volkswagen van draped in rainbow and Rastafarian flags had played a selection of her music from speakers. The playlist mixed her rock and pop hits with her renditions of Irish traditional ballads, including “The Foggy Dew.”Ms. O’Connor, who was found dead in her London apartment last month, converted to Islam in 2018, and her family will give her a Muslim burial on Tuesday. While the family wished to keep the funeral private, they invited the public to come to Bray for a last farewell.Some of those lining the streets — suddenly sunny after days of gray skies — were avid music fans. Others were activists, and there were also abuse survivors who had drawn strength from Ms. O’Connor’s openness about her own experience of childhood trauma. Dave Sharp, who said he had spent years in care homes and been the victim of abuse, traveled to Bray from Glasgow on Monday.“We didn’t have much notice but I’d promised myself that I’d be there for her,” he said. “Sinéad O’Connor is one of the bravest women I’ve ever known of. She not only put her life and career on the line, but she was ahead of her time.”The president of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, will attend the funeral with his wife, Sabrina.“The outpouring of grief and appreciation of the life and work of Sinéad O’Connor demonstrates the profound impact which she had on the Irish people,” he said in a statement. Speaking of her “immense heroism” and the pain it caused her, he added: “That is why all those who are seeking to make a fist of their life, combining its different dimensions in their own way, can feel so free to express their grief at her loss.”In accordance with an old Irish custom, her coffin was first carried past her last family home in Ireland, on the seaside promenade in Bray.Clodagh Kilcoyne/ReutersIn recent days, among a rolling wave of tributes, a creative agency temporarily augmented a World War II territorial marker on nearby Bray Head to celebrate the singer. Where once it said “Eire” — Irish for Ireland — to warn belligerent aircraft that they were approaching neutral Irish territory, the giant sign now says “Eire 🤍 Sinéad.”Passionate and often controversial, Ms. O’Connor had slowly become, in the eyes of many, a national treasure, a woman who spoke up for the weak and oppressed, and who took an early stand against the abuses of the Catholic Church in Ireland and elsewhere.Her public struggles with mental health inspired protective feelings in fans and supporters, and added to the grief at news of her untimely death at age 56. Although an autopsy has been completed in London, no cause of death has yet been given.Ms. O’Connor, performing in Avenches, Switzerland, in 2008, had become a national treasure in the eyes of many.Ennio Leanza/EPA, via ShutterstockOver the weekend, performers and crowds came together at summer music festivals around the island to sing some of the musician’s most beloved songs, such as “Mandinka,” and “Black Boys on Mopeds.”The week before, the crowd fell silent, then applauded, at Ireland’s biggest sporting occasion, the inter-county Gaelic football final in Dublin’s 80,000-capacity Croke Park, as the big screens played the famous video of her version of “Nothing Compares 2 U.”Even the church, famously the target of her anger, has paid respects. Speaking last week, before the annual ancient pilgrimage to climb Croagh Patrick in the west of Ireland, the Catholic primate of Ireland, Archbishop Eamon Martin, said he had heard many stories about her kindness.“Clearly her own trauma and her own personal experiences made her a very compassionate person who reached out to the marginalized — she had real empathy,” he said. “God rest her troubled soul.”Flowers, messages and gifts were piled in front of Ms. O’Connor’s former home, many paying tribute to her empathy and the causes she supported.Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters More
- in Music
Moonbin, Member of K-Pop Band ASTRO, Dies at 25
The K-pop star was found dead on Wednesday at his home in Seoul.Moonbin, a member of the K-pop band ASTRO, died on Wednesday at his home in Seoul. He was 25.The pop star’s death was confirmed by the band and its management agency in a statement in Korean posted to Twitter. They did not specify a cause.“On April 19, ASTRO member Moonbin suddenly left us and has now become a star in the sky,” the agency said. It called on fans to refrain from “speculative and malicious reports” so that his family could process the news. To respect their wishes, the agency added, the funeral would be held as privately as possible, with only family, friends and colleagues.According to the Korean news agency Yonhap, Moonbin was found dead at his home in the upscale neighborhood of Gangnam at about 8:10 p.m. on Wednesday by his manager, who contacted the Seoul Gangnam Police Station. Moonbin, born Jan. 26, 1998, was an actor, dancer and model as well as a singer, who also performed as part of the band Moonbin & Sanha. ASTRO, originally a six-person male K-Pop group, shot to fame in 2016 with their debut EP “Spring Up.” They were named to Billboard’s top 10 list of new K-Pop groups that year.In a statement shared early Wednesday, ASTRO announced the cancellation of the Moonbin & Sanha tour in Jakarta “due to unforeseen circumstances.”News of Moonbin’s death reverberated throughout the K-pop world, as fans praised the star for introducing them to the genre, and mourned the sudden loss.Moonbin is the most recent of a series of Korean celebrities in their 20s dying suddenly. In 2019, the deaths of two other K-pop stars left South Korea soul searching over what had gone wrong in one of its most popular cultural exports. Earlier this month, Jung Chae-yull, a 26-year-old South Korean actress, was also found dead in her home. Some, though not all, of the cases have been acknowledged as suicide.If you are having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources. More
- in Television
One Last Broadcast for Queen Elizabeth II
Television introduced Queen Elizabeth II to the world. It was only fitting that television should see her out of it.The queen’s seven-decade reign almost exactly spanned the modern TV era. Her coronation in 1953 began the age of global video spectacles. Her funeral on Monday was a full-color pageant accessible to billions.It was a final display of the force of two institutions: the concentrated grandeur of the British monarchy and the power amassed by television to bring viewers to every corner of the world.“I have to be seen to be believed,” Elizabeth once reportedly said. It was less a boast than an acknowledgment of a modern duty. One had to be seen, whether one liked it or not. It was her source of authority at a time when the crown’s power no longer came through fleets of ships. It was how she provided her country reassurance and projected stability.The last funeral service for a British monarch, King George VI, was not televised. For one last time, Elizabeth was the first. She entered the world stage, through the new magic of broadcasting, as a resolute young face. She departed it as a bejeweled crown on a purple cushion, transmuted finally into pure visual symbol.Americans who woke up early Monday (or stayed up, in some time zones) saw striking images aplenty, on every news network. The breathtaking God’s-eye view from above the coffin in Westminster Abbey. The continuous stream of world leaders. The thick crowds along the procession to Windsor, flinging flowers at the motorcade. The corgis.Viewers also saw and heard something unusual in the TV news environment: long stretches of unnarrated live action — the speaking of prayers, the clop of horse hooves — and moments of stillness. This was notable in the golf-whisper coverage on BBC World News, which let scenes like the loading of the coffin onto a gun carriage play out in silence, its screen bare of the usual lower-thirds captions.The commercial American networks, being the distant relations at this service, filled in the gaps with chattery bits of history and analysis. News departments called in the Brits. (On Fox News, the reality-TV fixtures Piers Morgan and Sharon Osbourne critiqued Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s media ventures.) “Royal commentators” broke down points of protocol and inventoried the materials and symbolism of the crown, scepter and orb like auction appraisers.The queen was the first British monarch to have a televised coronation, in June 1953.AFP via Getty ImagesBut even American TV fell still during the funeral ceremony. The cameras drank in the Gothic arches of Westminster Abbey, bathed in the hymns of the choirs, goggled at the royal jewels, lingered on the solemn face of Charles III during the performance of — it still sounds strange — “God Save the King.” Finally, we watched from above as bearers carried the coffin step by step across the black-and-white-diamond floor like an ornate chess piece.The quiet spectating was a gesture of respect but also a kind of tourist’s awe. We had come all this way; of course we wanted to take in the sights.Elizabeth’s reign was marked by unprecedented visibility, for better or worse. Her coronation in 1953 spurred the British to buy television sets, bringing the country into the TV age and inviting the public into an event once reserved for the upper crust.This changed something essential in the relation of the masses to the monarchy. The coronation, with its vestments and blessings, signified the exclusive connection of the monarch to God. Once that was no longer exclusive, everything else in the relationship between the ruler and the public was up for negotiation.The young queen resisted letting in the cameras. The prime minister Winston Churchill worried about making the ritual into a “theatrical performance.” But Elizabeth could no more stop the force of media than her forebear King Canute could halt the tide.TV undercut the mystique of royalty but spread its image, expanding the queen’s virtual reach even as the colonial empire diminished. There were other surviving monarchies in the world, but the Windsors were the default royals of TV-dom, the main characters in a generational reality-TV soap opera. They became global celebrities, through scandals, weddings, deaths and “The Crown.”The coronation had worldwide effects too. It began the age when TV would bring the world into your living room live — or at least close to it. In 1953, with live trans-Atlantic broadcasts still not yet possible, CBS and NBC raced to fly the kinescopes of the event across the ocean in airplanes with their seats removed to fit in editing equipment. (They both lost to Canada’s CBC, which got its footage home first.)The next day’s Times heralded the event as the “birth of international television,” marveling that American viewers “probably saw more than the peers and peeresses in their seats in the transept.” Boy, did they: NBC’s “Today” show coverage, which carried a radio feed of the coronation, included an appearance by its chimpanzee mascot, J. Fred Muggs. Welcome to show business, Your Majesty.The one limit on cameras at Elizabeth’s coronation was to deny them a view of the ritual anointment of the new queen. By 2022, viewers take divine omniscience for granted. If we can think of it, we should be able to see it.The hearse was designed to allow spectators to see the coffin as it passed by.Molly Darlington/Getty ImagesSo after Elizabeth’s death, you could monitor the convoy from Balmoral Castle in Scotland to London, with a glassy hearse designed and lit to make the coffin visible. You could watch the queen’s lying-in-state in Westminster Hall on live video feeds, from numerous angles, the silence broken only by the occasional cry of a baby or cough of a guard. The faces came and went, including the queen’s grandchildren joining the tribute, but the camera’s vigil was constant.After 70 years, however, television has lost its exclusive empire as well. Even as it broadcast what was described — plausibly but vaguely — as the most-watched event in history, traditional TV shared the funeral audience with the internet and social media.Elizabeth and the medium that defined her reign were both unifiers of a kind that we might not see again. Though not all of the British support the monarchy, the queen offered her fractious country a sense of constancy. TV brought together disparate populations in the communal experience of seeing the same thing at once.Now what? Tina Brown, the writer, editor and royal-watcher, asked on CBS, “Will anyone be loved by the nation so much again?” You could also ask: Will Charles’s coronation next year be nearly as big a global media event? Will anything? (You could also ask whether an event like this should be so all-consuming. While American TV news was wall-to-wall with an overseas funeral, Puerto Rico was flooded and without power from Hurricane Fiona.)Monday’s services felt like a capstone to two eras. For one day, we saw a display of the pageantry that the crown can command and the global audience that TV can.American TV spent its full morning with the queen. (Well, almost: CBS aired the season premiere of “The Price Is Right.”) The day’s pomp built toward one more never-before-broadcast ceremony, the removal of scepter, orb and crown from the coffin, which was lowered into the vault at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor. Then followed something almost unimaginable: A private burial service, with no TV cameras.Television got one final spectacle out of Elizabeth’s reign. And the queen had one final moment out of the public eye. More
- in Music
What Music to Expect at Queen Elizabeth II’s Funeral
For centuries, the format of British royal funerals has largely stayed the same, with a history that tells the story of both the monarchy and music.What is the sound of a monarch’s death — the music and noise that commemorates the end of one regal life in preparation for the one to come?Music plays an enormous role in British royal ceremonies, particularly funerals, like Queen Elizabeth II’s on Sept. 19, which function as both state and religious rituals. Because the British monarch is also head of the Church of England, the sounds of these events are often tied to the Anglican musical tradition, springing out of the post-English Reformation Church.Since 1603, much of the royal funeral’s format has stayed the same, while some aspects shift to reflect the time and the monarch. The result is a striking combination of diverse works that tell both the story of the British monarchy and British music.The rites performed in the Church of England service come from the Order of the Burial of the Dead from the Book of Common Prayer. First published in 1549, it provided services and ways of daily worship in Anglican churches. The musical portions of the liturgy offered the text that has been set by composers for funerals — royal and otherwise.Those texts are called Funeral Sentences, collectively called the Burial Service, and are broken up into three parts: Opening Sentences, sung when the priests meet the body at the church; Graveside Sentences, for when the body is buried or interred; and the Last Sentence, sung after the priest throws earth onto the body.During the funeral, Sentences are separated by psalms, which are read or sung, and anthems (choral works accompanied by instruments, another musical element of the Book of Common Prayer’s liturgy). In addition, royal funerals have featured outdoor processions, including wind, brass and percussion instruments in the 17th century and, in the 20th, imperial military bands.Here is an overview of significant moments in the history of such music, from Elizabeth I to Princess Diana and the present.Elton John played a version of his song “Candle in the Wind” at Princess Diana’s funeral in 1997.Paul Hackett/Associated PressElizabeth I, 1603Elizabeth I’s funeral, at Westminster Abbey, began the tradition of grand royal services. It was the first such ceremony to use the Anglican rites and feature its associated musical liturgy. While we do not know conclusively what was performed, illustrations and surviving accounts from musicians mention the outdoor procession featuring trumpeters and the combined choirs of the Chapel Royal and Westminster Abbey. The setting most likely used for the burial service is by Thomas Morley (1557-1602), possibly written in anticipation of the occasion and often considered the first of its kind. Morley’s setting reflects the solemnity of both the text and the occasion, and it became standard for royal funerals until the 18th century.Mary II, 1695Musical innovations made to the royal funeral began with Mary II and the inclusion of new music by Henry Purcell (1659-95), including one Graveside Sentence: “Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts.” Referred to as “Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary” (Z. 860), including the march and canzona also performed, Purcell’s setting of “Thou knowest, Lord” might have been composed to match Morley’s Sentences, accompanied by “flatt, mournful Trumpets” mirroring the vocal parts. Purcell’s “Funeral March” was a new, thunderous addition, opening with deep, heavy drums before the trumpets enter, both mournful and heraldic.Anne, 1714Anne’s funeral, at Westminster Abbey, showcases the royal funeral integrating new music into already existing settings of the Burial Service. Alongside Morley’s Opening Sentences were Funeral Sentences from the Chapel Royal organist William Croft (1678-1727). Croft’s Burial Service became the choice for royal funerals to come, and though it was written for Anne’s funeral, it was most likely not completed until 1722. He would use Purcell’s “Thou knowest, Lord” as one of the Sentences within his Burial Service, writing in his “Musica Sacra” (1724) that he “endeavoured, as near as possibly I could, to imitate that great Master and celebrated Composer.” Anne’s funeral also included a new anthem by Croft, “The Souls of the Righteous.”Caroline, 1737The death of Caroline, the wife of George II, brought about a musical addition to the royal funeral befitting the Hanoverian queen. George commissioned a funeral anthem from George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) who had known Caroline as a child. Handel’s anthem, “The Ways of Zion Do Mourn” (HWV 264), is a monumental work that at the Westminster Abbey funeral “took up three quarter of an hour of the time,” The Grub-Street Journal described, and employed almost 200 performers. While an anthem, the various parts of the work recall the Lutheranism of Caroline and Handel, featuring quotations of that faith’s music. Notably, Mozart would use the melody of the anthem’s first chorus for his Requiem (1791).Victoria, 1901Like so much about Victoria’s reign, her funeral was exceptionally different from that of her predecessors. Unlike previous monarchs, she requested a royal public funeral at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, and a private burial next to Prince Albert at Frogmore House, near Windsor. Because the public service prioritized the funeral as state function over the utility of burial, Croft’s Burial Service here is more an appeal to tradition rather than a liturgical and religious need. Accordingly, Purcell’s “Thou knowest, Lord” and “Man that is born of woman,” by S.S. Wesley (1810-1876), are referred to as anthems instead of Funeral Sentences, rationalizing their inclusion in the service. The end of the ceremony featured music by Gounod, Tchaikovsky, Spohr and Beethoven, wresting the funeral music from the hands of British composers.RECENT ROYAL FUNERALS may offer insight into this tradition’s future. Princess Diana’s funeral, in 1997, featured Croft, but the anthem and procession choices embodied Diana the person: John Tavener’s “Song for Athene,” Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind,” and the second half of the “Libera me, Domine” from Verdi’s Requiem. With Tavener and Verdi, non-Protestant music and liturgy were included for the first time in a royal or state funeral; and all three works evoke a solemnity and majesty both timely and timeless.Similarly, Prince Philip’s participation in his own funeral’s planning shows through in his choice of musical selections. Along with Croft were the hymn “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” a nod to his naval roots, and two pieces commissioned by him: Benjamin Britten’s “Jubilate Deo,” written for St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, and a setting of Psalm 104 by William Lovelady, arranged for four voices and organ. This musical flexibility shows another shift in the royal funeral tradition as it continues into the 21st century.So, what can we expect for Elizabeth II? It has been 70 years since Britain has witnessed the sovereign’s funeral, and so much has changed in that time. Britain has entered a new era, post-Brexit, in which there may be a call to return to the music of old. But many composers have thrived in the second Elizabethan Age — as wide-ranging as Britten and Errollyn Wallen — with her coronation as a testament to musical innovation similar to Elizabeth I.Britain’s future is unknown, and the end of Elizabeth II’s reign may be a turning point. Her funeral will sound like so many that came before. But it may also sound like the music of a new age.Imani Danielle Mosley is an assistant professor of musicology at the University of Florida. She specializes in the music and culture of postwar Britain, Benjamin Britten, English modernism and 20th-century opera. More
- in Theater
‘On Sugarland’ Review: A Nameless War, and Too Many Wounds to Count
Inspired by Sophocles’ “Philoctetes,” Aleshea Harris uses poetic language, songs and symbolism to explore the trauma of being alive, especially for Black people.Let’s begin with the war. Not the war that’s in the headlines. Not Iraq or Vietnam. I’m talking about war as metaphor. And in the realm of metaphor, anything can happen: A veteran’s wound may incessantly — and inexplicably — bleed for years, and a slain soldier’s daughter may have the ability to raise the dead.This allegorical war, along with an impaired officer and a junior necromancer, are of the world of “On Sugarland,” a beautifully produced play that struggles to follow through on its ambitions. “On Sugarland,” which opened Thursday night at New York Theater Workshop, is the latest from the Obie-winning playwright Aleshea Harris (“Is God Is,” “What to Send Up When It Goes Down”), whose work often lifts the everyday trauma of being alive, especially as a Black person, to the plane of poetry through heightened language, songs, rituals and symbols.Speaking of symbols, that’s how the heavy-drinking Odella, played by Adeola Role with delicate vulnerability, describes Sugarland, a makeshift memorial of odds and ends that sits among the cul-de-sac of mobile homes where she lives with her teenage niece, Sadie (KiKi Layne, most exquisite at her most understated). Sugarland is just a symbol, Odella reminds Sadie, though not everyone agrees; a neighbor, tired of mourning, dismisses it as “some kind of horrifying carnival graveyard.”In an early scene, Odella and Sadie are on their way to a funeral for Sadie’s mother, Sergeant Iola Marie, who died in the nameless war. She’ll be commemorated at Sugarland, where a helmet, scarves, dog tags, bottles and other items are arranged into upright posts to remember locals who have died in the war. Every funeral is honored with what the locals call a “hollering,” a ritual of wooting and wailing that’s led by Staff Sergeant Saul Greenwood (Billy Eugene Jones, perfection). He had enlisted with Iola and now suffers trauma that’s both psychological and physical: on his right foot is an unhealing wound.Stephanie Berry is a comic delight as the vain and irreverent Evelyn.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAnd yet Saul extols the virtues of being a soldier and encourages his teenage son, Addis (a profoundly forlorn Caleb Eberhardt), to imagine himself a warrior — while forbidding him to enlist because Addis is intellectually disabled. Tending to Sugarland is Tisha (the underused Lizan Mitchell), a woman in her 60s who speaks to her deceased son through the sacred memorial and lives with her vain, irreverent sister Evelyn (Stephanie Berry, the play’s comic delight). Watching everything unfold mostly from the sidelines is Sadie, who doesn’t speak except for her long soliloquies to the audience. She can raise the dead, she reveals, and summons several generations of ancestors to help her find her mother from beyond the grave.There are a lot of characters and a lot of story lines in this nearly three-hour production. A Greek chorus of neighborhood children called the Rowdy round out the cast of 14. The chorus isn’t the only element Harris borrowed from the Greeks; “On Sugarland” was inspired by the Sophocles play “Philoctetes,” about two soldiers who try to persuade a master archer with a chronically festering foot wound to rejoin the Trojan War. Both works involve an ailing soldier, but whether Harris makes any deeper connections to the Sophocles work, or aspires to some dialogue between her piece and the classic, is unclear.Harris certainly isn’t the only playwright who writes lyrical dialogue with its own internal meter, but she is one of the best navigators of shifts in language and registers, even within a single scene. So we get tasty figurative gumdrops that subtly illuminate the inner thoughts of the characters, like the glamorous Evelyn’s description of the setting sun, which, she says, looks “like a starlet whose solo is over.” But Harris struggles with an overambitious story. “On Sugarland” is unable to adequately unpack its cornucopia of themes: post-traumatic stress disorder, Black masculinity, the history of Black soldiers, Black women fighting racism and misogyny, the ways Black women respond to grief, the choices Black women make about their bodies in a world of prejudice.Layne as Sadie, left, and Adeola Role as Odella, her heavy-drinking aunt.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesEven the opposing force within the play’s metaphorical war is a mystery: Perhaps it’s any country or peoples that the U.S. government calls enemy, or perhaps it’s the racist citizens in the characters’ backyards. The issue isn’t a lack of exposition; it’s that “On Sugarland” is inconsistent in the vocabulary it builds for itself.The characters suffer for it, too; they’re saddled with so many symbolic meanings that their roles become muddled and there’s little space for their actual development. In Evelyn, who talks about pregnancy and at one point sheds tears of blood, I found allusions to the phenomenon of bleeding Virgin Mary statues and the higher pregnancy mortality rates for Black women. I wondered if Sadie, with her supernatural ability and muteness, may be an archetypical prophet figure, like Tiresias, the blind soothsayer from the Greek dramas.In other words, I never knew the bounds of the metaphors.With her direction, Whitney White occasionally dips too far into melodrama, but otherwise nimbly adapts to the tonal shifts and key changes of Harris’s script. Raja Feather Kelly’s electric choreography adds a physical syncopation (stomping, marching, pacing, dancing) that complements the rhythms of the dialogue.Caleb Eberhardt, far right, being taunted by members of the Rowdy, a Greek chorus of neighborhood children.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe play’s most intoxicating moments are when all of those bodies are onstage hollering, each moving in such carefully curated directions in such diligently structured postures that they become like a liberated tableau. (The riotous quality of the noise, the combative moves and the sheer volume of the Rowdy are radical; these performers push back against the notion that Black people must act meek and nonthreatening for the comfort of white people.) The cast’s smart costumes are by Qween Jean, whose designs include the casual streetwear of the Rowdy and Evelyn’s taffy-pink ball gown.Amith Chandrashaker’s lighting design is its own eloquent form of storytelling — from the soft sepia-toned light of a lonely street lamp to the vertical Gatorade-green lights that flank the stage — and, at times, works alongside Starr Busby’s bold original music to transform the space into a club.And Adam Rigg’s dynamic set design cleverly uses a multilayered layout to allow action to happen at different heights: On the top are three mobile homes, windows revealing characters arguing or drinking from their domicile; the middle level is a circular grassy platform, the plot of yard called Sugarland; at the bottom, railroad tracks wind around Sugarland and out of sight.“We strong We brave We quick / We aim and … We don’t never miss,” Sadie says, speaking of the women in her family. The story of “On Sugarland,” however, flounders at times; it’s hard to hit a bull’s-eye when a mess of targets cloud your sightline.On SugarlandThrough March 20 at the New York Theater Workshop, Manhattan; nytw.org. Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes. More
- in Movies
‘State Funeral’ Review: Saying Goodbye to Stalin
Sergei Loznitsa’s new found-footage documentary illuminates Soviet life in the immediate aftermath of the dictator’s death.Joseph Stalin died on March 5, 1953. “State Funeral,” the Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa’s fascinating and elusive new documentary, shows what happened in the next few days, as Stalin’s body lay in state at the Hall of Unions in Moscow before being transferred to the Lenin mausoleum. (It was removed eight years later, but that’s another story).Composed entirely of footage shot at the time in various parts of the Soviet Union, the film is a haunting amalgam of official pomp and everyday experience, the double image of a totalitarian government and the people in whose name it ruled.At the beginning, crowds gather to hear news of the dictator’s death, read out in stately, somber tones over loudspeakers. Those broadcasts, which continue as the masses shuffle past Stalin’s wreath-laden coffin, supply an abstract, rose-colored interpretation of his life amid frequent invocations of his immortality. His subjects — his comrades, in the idiom of the time — are reminded of his undying love for them, as well as of his “selflessness,” his courage and his monumental intelligence. He was, among other accomplishments, “the greatest genius in human history.”This kind of rhetoric is evidence of the cult of personality that would be disavowed a few years later when Nikita Khrushchev came to power and undertook a program of de-Stalinization. “State Funeral” captures the official manifestations of that cult, including the gigantic portraits of Stalin hanging from public buildings and the arrival of delegations from other communist countries. Fulsome elegies are delivered by the distinctly uncharismatic men who — briefly, as it turned out — took Stalin’s place: Georgy Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov and Lavrenti Beria. (Khrushchev, who would shortly kick them out, serves as master of ceremonies).But Stalin’s famous visage, with its bushy mustache and sweptback hair, is upstaged by the throngs of ordinary citizens who gather to bear witness and pay tribute. The anonymous camera operators, shooting in color and in black and white in far-flung shipyards, factories, oil fields and collective farms, are Loznitsa’s vital collaborators. Intentionally or not, they gathered images that complicate and to some extent subvert the somber, emptied-out language of the regime, disclosing a complicated human reality beneath the ideological boilerplate.It’s the parade of ordinary Soviets that makes “State Funeral” both moving and unnerving. It is hard not to be touched by the tears shed by grandmothers, soldiers, old men in fur hats and bareheaded young women, even though they are mourning a monster. Other responses are harder to read. Does that steady, unsmiling gaze signify stoicism or defiance? Is that faint smile an expression of relief? Of gratitude? Of terror? When someone looks directly into the camera, do the eyes register suspicion or solidarity?A brief note at the end of the film reminds the viewer of Stalin’s crimes against his own people — the tens of millions purged, imprisoned, starved and slaughtered. That knowledge sits uncomfortably with what has come before, not because the leaden language of the scripted obsequies is persuasive, but because the grieving citizens are so real. In their variety and particularity, these people don’t seem to belong to a distant place and time. They seem entirely modern and familiar.Which can be taken as a warning: Any population can be swayed and subjugated by tyranny. They could be us. But the tone of “State Funeral” is more meditative than admonitory. It contemplates the Soviet state at almost the exact midpoint of its existence, illuminating the faces of those who lived there and at the same time reckoning with the dead weight of history.State FuneralNot rated. In Russian, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes. At Film Forum. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters. More
- in Music
Sígale mariachi: la música no termina ni con el duelo
Incluso cuando las fiestas de cumpleaños y las bodas han escaseado durante la pandemia, los conjuntos musicales han seguido trabajando en los velorios, entre ellos los de algunos de sus integrantes.Frente al arco de piedra del Centro de Retiro Juvenil Salesiano de San José, a las afueras de Los Ángeles, el ataúd de madera oscura donde se encontraba el cuerpo de Juan Jiménez fue colocado junto a un grupo de mariachis con cubrebocas. El conjunto se preparó para tocar levantando de manera simultánea los arcos de los violines, las manos sobre un arpa dorada y los dedos listos para digitar las cuerdas de los guitarrones, sus bajos.Cuando terminó la oración del sacerdote, Jesus Guzmán dirigió a la banda, el Mariachi Los Camperos, durante casi una hora de música: canciones de dolor y despedida, como “Las Golondrinas”.Las agendas de los mariachis de todo el país solían estar llenas de fechas reservadas para bodas, quinceaños y serenatas en las que la vigorosa música de la cultura mexicana ayudaba a animar algunos de los momentos más alegres de la vida. Con la llegada de la pandemia, esas oportunidades de trabajo desaparecieron y quedaron solo funerales, una creciente cantidad de funerales que ha salvado a algunos mariachis de la ruina financiera.Listen to This ArticleEl Mariachi Los Camperos en un concierto antes de la pandemia. En febrero, tocaron en el funeral de su aclamado guitarrista nacional, Juan Jiménez (fila de atrás, segundo por la derecha), que murió por el coronavirus.Jesus GuzmanEn este funeral, llevado a cabo en febrero, la interpretación fue especialmente apasionada, y los músicos, que se quitaron los sombreros, inclinaron la cabeza al pasar el cuerpo del difunto. Jiménez era uno de los suyos, un admirado ejecutante de guitarrón que había sucumbido a los 58 años a causa del coronavirus.“Él estaba contento de que sus compañeros, sus amigos, estábamos ahí con él, tocándole, dándole gracias, siguiendo su trabajo”, señaló Guzmán, amigo de Jiménez desde la infancia y director musical del grupo de mariachis del que ambos eran propietarios.Presenciar la cantidad de eventos tristes que han mantenido a algunos conjuntos de mariachis económicamente vivos es enfrentarse a los desgarradores estragos que ha causado el virus en la gente que alguna vez cantó su música. Los habitantes latinos y negros que fueron presa de la feroz ola de coronavirus de este invierno en todo el condado de Los Ángeles murieron a un ritmo dos o tres veces superior al de la población blanca del lugar.Los integrantes del Mariachi Los Galleros de San Antonio dicen que la pandemia provocó la cancelación de docenas de eventos que tenían programados.Christopher Lee para The New York TimesLa situación es similar en otros lugares con poblaciones latinas grandes, y los estudios muestran que los latinos son más vulnerables a enfermar y morir por el virus. Sus comunidades y hogares tienden a estar más poblados y a depender del transporte público, su acceso a la atención sanitaria es limitado y sus trabajos suelen implicar contacto con otras personas.Por eso, mientras sepultan los féretros, muchos grupos de mariachis de California, Texas, Illinois y otros lugares tocan canciones de dolor y pena para mitigar la tristeza del fallecimiento. Incluso para las bandas acostumbradas a tocar en funerales desde antes de la pandemia, la ola de muertes ha sido abrumadora. Muchos han perdido familiares y amigos, miembros de sus conjuntos y profesores de música.Durante décadas, las bandas familiares de mariachis y los músicos autónomos de Los Ángeles han acudido a la Plaza del Mariachi, al este del centro de la ciudad, para competirse las contrataciones. Aquí es donde Christian Chávez, secretario de la Organización de Mariachis Independientes de California, ha repartido cajas de alimentos a los músicos en apuros desde que la pandemia comenzó a afectar el negocio.En el estacionamiento se afinan los instrumentos.Christopher Lee para The New York TimesEnsayo en los minutos previos a un eventoChristopher Lee para The New York TimesEl Mariachi Los Galleros de San Antonio ensaya en la casa de uno de sus integrantes antes de un evento.Christopher Lee para The New York TimesMiguel Guzmán, del Mariachi Los Galleros de San Antonio, dijo que estuvo a punto de morir cuando el coronavirus lo mandó al hospital durante un mes en noviembre.Christopher Lee para The New York TimesComo muchos de los músicos que conoció en la plaza, Chávez no fue inmune a los problemas económicos derivados de la pandemia. El grupo que fundó su abuelo en México, el Mariachi Tierra Mexicana, enfrentó dificultades. La pandemia acabó con sus ahorros en siete meses. El coronavirus obligó a Chávez y a otros mariachis a tomar decisiones muy duras para poder llegar a fin de mes. Eso llevó a muchos a seguir trabajando en eventos en los que la gente no se preocupaba por usar cubrebocas y mantener el distanciamiento social.No obstante, para muchos, los funerales y los entierros se convirtieron en su sostén, el cual, aunque aliviaba las penas económicas, infligía otro tipo de daño aun para los que estaban acostumbrados a tocar en esas ceremonias de manera intermitente entre otros eventos. El llanto. La gente que se aferraba a los ataúdes mientras los bajaban. Chávez dijo que, en ocasiones, esos momentos eran tan devastadores que tenía que apartar la vista y concentrarse solo en su trompeta.Chávez contó que, de los 400 miembros activos de la organización de mariachis de California, cerca de 80 han muerto a causa del virus, posiblemente tras contagiarse mientras se presentaban en fiestas y restaurantes, entre otros eventos. Esa cifra incluye a su padrino, Dagoberto Martínez, quien tocó la vihuela en su conjunto familiar durante 15 años.“Cada vez que voy a trabajar, rezo para ser uno de los afortunados que regresan a casa”, dijo en una entrevista en video Chávez, quien está trabajando en eventos y tocando en decenas de funerales. Su familia y él también enfermaron gravemente de coronavirus en octubre.Todos los trabajadores de las artes escénicas han tenido dificultades durante la pandemia, ya que el desempleo ha afectado desproporcionadamente a ese sector. En las entrevistas, muchos de ellos dijeron que una característica única de los mariachis es la importancia que adquirió su música como parte del ritual fúnebre para una población especialmente diezmada por la pandemia.A medida que más personas se vacunan, el Mariachi Los Galleros de San Antonio está viendo un ligero aumento de los eventos mientras sigue tocando en muchos funerales.Christopher Lee para The New York TimesEn Pilsen, un barrio de Chicago con una importante comunidad latina, el círculo de mariachis de Enrique y Karen León ha disminuido en el último año, en parte por las muertes atribuidas al coronavirus.“Cada mariachi representa un instrumento, un instrumento que va a escucharse en un grupo”, dijo Karen León, gerente del grupo Mariachi México Vivo, al describir lo que significa la pérdida de músicos para la estrecha comunidad de mariachis. “Mucha gente pensará: ‘Bueno, hay muchos más mariachis en Chicago’, pero es muy difícil reemplazar a alguien cuando tiene su propio talento, porque la vida no se puede reemplazar por otra, y el talento, tampoco”.En los últimos cuatro meses, Enrique León y seis miembros de la banda han tocado en 15 funerales, la mitad de ellos por muertes relacionadas con el coronavirus. Aunque los funerales son esenciales, y ayudan a pagar las cuentas, no se comparan con el impulso emocional de actuar en un evento en el que uno puede ver cómo la música levanta el ánimo de la gente.“Siempre me alegro de estar tocando mi guitarra, estar componiendo canciones, estar, por ejemplo, frente al público, cantando”, dice Enrique León. “Todo ese ambiente de estar conviviendo con la gente, eso me llena mucho. Y realmente donde estoy, digo, estoy trabajando y ganando dinero, pero no es lo mismo. No es lo mismo ver esas sonrisas, esos gritos, ese sentimiento de la gente cuando ve al mariachi que llega, esa emoción”.El Mariachi México Vivo toca en una fiesta de 50 años en marzo.Samantha Cabrera Friend para The New York TimesLa fiesta fue un regreso a la normalidad para un grupo cuyas actuaciones en ocasiones felices se habían visto interrumpidas por la pandemia.Samantha Cabrera Friend para The New York TimesJosefina Gonzales, la invitada de honor, en el centro, que sobrevivió al virus, se sorprendió y se emocionó, con la actuación del conjunto.Samantha Cabrera Friend para The New York TimesLos integrantes del Mariachi México Vivo, que sonríen aquí en la fiesta de cumpleaños, han tocado en 15 funerales en los últimos meses.Samantha Cabrera Friend para The New York TimesEn Texas, en noviembre, Miguel Guzmán, del Mariachi Los Galleros de San Antonio, tuvo que dar un descanso a su violín y su música cuando dio positivo en la prueba de coronavirus. Pocos días antes había ido, con cubrebocas, a la casa de un amigo, un vendedor de instrumentos de confianza, a comprar un violín para un estudiante. Su amigo falleció días después debido al virus.Guzmán también enfermó de gravedad y pasó un mes en el hospital. El virus lo dejó sin aliento. Necesitaba un flujo constante de oxígeno para respirar con sus pulmones dañados; bajó 18 kilos y perdió toda la musculatura; necesitó fisioterapia tan solo para volver a caminar.En casa, se le entumecieron los dedos en varias ocasiones en que intentó tomar su violín, pero lo que lo mantuvo motivado para recuperarse fue la promesa de volver a tocar en la banda con sus hijos y componer una canción para su mujer.El mes pasado, Guzmán volvió por fin con su grupo y tocó en otra ronda de funerales y entierros. En su primer día de vuelta en el trabajo asistió al funeral del suegro de un amigo. La semana siguiente fue el funeral de uno de sus clientes de toda la vida, el dueño de una tienda de neumáticos que había muerto por complicaciones relacionadas con el coronavirus.En ese funeral, estuvo de pie cerca del féretro con su banda tocando “Te vas, ángel mío”. Podía escuchar el llanto, sí, pero también podía oír su violín, que hacía que la vida continuara para quienes lloraban y para él.“La música es la medicina, porque cuando estoy tocando, me olvido de que no puedo respirar”, concluyó Guzmán.Christina Morales es una reportera que cubre noticias de última hora a nivel nacional para la sección Express. También forma parte de la generación de becarios 2020-2021 de The New York Times. @Christina_M18 More
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Mariachis Play On, Their Music Unsilenced by the Virus or the Deaths
Even as the birthday parties and weddings grew scarce during the pandemic, the musicians were increasingly hired to play at funerals, including those of band members.Listen to This ArticleFacing the stone archway of St. Joseph’s Salesian Youth Retreat Center outside Los Angeles, the dark wooden coffin holding the body of Juan Jiménez was wheeled next to a band of masked mariachis. The group readied themselves to play, simultaneously lifting bows to violins, hands to a golden harp and fingers to pluck at guitarróns, their bass guitars.When the priest’s prayer ended, Jesus Guzmán led the band, Mariachi Los Camperos, through almost an hour of music: songs that express grief and goodbyes, like “Las Golondrinas” (“The Swallows”).The calendars of mariachi bands nationwide used to be full of dates for weddings, quinceañeras and serenades where the vigorous music of Mexican culture helped enliven some of life’s most joyous moments. With the onset of the pandemic, those opportunities disappeared, leaving behind only the funerals, the mounting number of funerals, that have kept some mariachis from financial ruin.Mariachi Los Camperos playing a concert before the pandemic. In February, they performed at the funeral of their nationally acclaimed guitarron player, Juan Jiménez (back row, second from right) who died in the pandemic.Jesus GuzmanAt this funeral, in February, the playing was particularly passionate and the musicians, sombreros off, bowed their heads as the body passed. Jiménez was one of their own, a revered guitarrón player who had succumbed at 58 to the coronavirus.“His friends were all there with him, playing for him, thanking him, continuing his legacy,” said Guzmán, a friend of Jiménez since childhood and the music director of the mariachi band they both called their own.To witness the number of sad events that have kept some mariachi bands financially alive is to confront the virus’s harrowing toll on the people who once sang to their music. Latino and Black residents caught in this winter’s fierce coronavirus surge through Los Angeles County died at two or three times the rate of the white population there.Members of Mariachi Los Galleros de San Antonio say the pandemic caused the cancellation of dozens of events that they had been scheduled to perform. Christopher Lee for The New York TimesThe story is similar in other locations with large Latino populations, and studies show Latinos are more vulnerable to becoming ill and dying from the virus. Their communities and households tend to be more crowded and to rely on mass transit, their access to health care is limited and their jobs are likely to involve contact with the public.So as the caskets go into the ground, many mariachi bands in California, Texas, Illinois and elsewhere have turned to playing songs of pain and sorrow to ease the passing. Even for the bands used to playing at funerals before the pandemic, the sweep of death has been overwhelming. Many have lost family and friends, band members and music teachers.For decades, family-run mariachi bands and self-employed musicians in Los Angeles have descended on Mariachi Plaza east of Downtown to vie for new bookings. This is where Christian Chavez, the secretary for the Organization of Independent Mariachis of California, has handed out boxes of food to struggling musicians since the pandemic first upended business.Tuning up in the parking lot.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesRehearsing in the final minutes before an event.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesMariachi Los Galleros de San Antonio rehearsing at a member’s home before an event.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesMiguel Guzman, a member of Mariachi Los Galleros de San Antonio, said he almost died when the coronavirus landed him in the hospital for a month in November.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesLike many musicians he met on the plaza, Chavez was not immune to the pandemic’s financial hardships. The band his grandfather first founded in Mexico, Mariachi Tierra Mexicana, struggled. The pandemic wiped out his savings in seven months. The coronavirus forced Chavez and other mariachis to make grueling decisions just to make ends meet. That led many to continue working at events where people were nonchalant about masks and social distancing.But, for many, funerals and burials became the mainstay, easing the financial pain but exacting another kind of harm, even for those used to playing such ceremonies intermittently between other events. The weeping. The people grasping for coffins as they were lowered. Chavez said that, at times, these moments were so devastating he had to turn away and just focus on his trumpet.Of the 400 active members of the California mariachi organization, about 80 died of the virus, possibly having picked it up performing at events like parties and at restaurants, Chavez said. That tally includes his godfather, Dagoberto Martinez, who played the vihuela in his family band for 15 years.“Every time I go to work, I pray that I’m one of the lucky ones to return home,” Chavez, who is working events and playing at dozens of funerals, said in a video interview. He and his family got dangerously sick with the virus in October, too.All performing arts workers have struggled during the pandemic as unemployment had an undue influence on that sector. What is unique about the mariachi band members, many of them said in interviews, is how much their music became part of the ritual of passing for a population particularly affected by the pandemic.As more people get vaccinated, Mariachi Los Galleros de San Antonio is seeing a slight uptick in events while still playing at many funerals.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesIn Pilsen, a neighborhood of Chicago with a sizable Latino community, Enrique and Karen Leon’s circle of mariachis has waned in the past year, in part because of deaths attributed to the coronavirus.“Every mariachi represents a musical instrument, an instrument you hear in a group,” Karen Leon, the manager of the band Mariachi Mexico Vivo, said, describing what the loss of musicians means to the close community of mariachis. “Lots of people think, well, there are plenty of mariachis in Chicago, but it’s really difficult to replace someone when they have their talent. You can’t just replace someone’s life for another.”In the past four months, Enrique Leon and six members of the band played at 15 funerals, half of those for coronavirus-related deaths. Though the funerals are essential, and help pay the bills, they do not match the emotional boost of performing at an event where one can see the music lift people’s spirit like a buoy.“I want to play my guitar, compose songs, be in public singing,” Enrique Leon said. “That ambience fills me up. I’m working, and making money, but it’s not the same. It’s not the same without seeing smiles and laughter, the emotion from the crowd when they see the mariachi.”Members of Mariachi Mexico Vivo playing at a 50th birthday party in March.Samantha Cabrera Friend for The New York TimesThe party was a return to normalcy for a band whose performances at happy occasions had been disrupted by the pandemic.Samantha Cabrera Friend for The New York TimesThe guest of honor, Josefina Gonzales, center, who herself survived the virus, was surprised, and moved, by the appearance of the band.Samantha Cabrera Friend for The New York TimesMembers of Mariachi Mexico Vivo, smiling here at the birthday party, have played at 15 funerals in recent months.Samantha Cabrera Friend for The New York TimesIn Texas, back in November, Miguel Guzman of Mariachi Los Galleros de San Antonio had to put his violin and music aside when he tested positive for the coronavirus. Just days before, he was masked and inside the home of a friend who was a reliable instrument dealer, buying a violin for a student. The friend later died of the virus.Guzman fell very ill, too, and spent a month in the hospital. The virus winded him. He needed a constant stream of oxygen to breathe with his damaged lungs; he dropped 40 pounds and lost all his muscle; he needed physical therapy just to walk again.At home, his fingers were numb when he repeatedly tried picking up his violin, but it was the promise of playing in the band with his sons again and writing a composition for his wife that kept him motivated to recover.This past month, Guzman finally returned to the band and played at another round of funerals and burials. His first day back was at the funeral of a friend’s father-in-law. The week after, it was a funeral for one of his longtime clients, a tire-shop owner who had died of coronavirus-related complications.Close to the coffin at that funeral, he stood with the band playing “Te Vas Ángel Mío” or “You’re Leaving, Angel of Mine.” He could hear the crying, yes, but he also could hear his violin, carrying life forward for those who grieved, and for him.“Music is the medicine, because when I’m playing, I forget about not being able to breathe,” Guzman said. More
