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    Taylor Swift’s Singapore Shows Stir Anger in Southeast Asia

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    The country is defending paying the pop star to play nowhere else in Southeast Asia. Thailand’s prime minister said the price was up to $3 million per show.Taylor Swift has descended on Southeast Asia, or one small part of it at least: All of her six sold-out shows are in Singapore, the region’s wealthiest nation.Many of her fans in this part of the world, which is home to more than 600 million people, are disappointed. But the Singapore leg of Ms. Swift’s wildly popular Eras Tour, which began last weekend and ends on Saturday, is a soft power coup and a boost for the country’s post-pandemic economic recovery.The shows — and the undisclosed price that Singapore paid to host them — have also generated diplomatic tension with two of its neighbors, Thailand and the Philippines.Last month, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin of Thailand said publicly that Singapore had paid Ms. Swift up to $3 million per show on the condition that she play nowhere else in Southeast Asia. A lawmaker in the Philippines later said that was not “what good neighbors do.”Singapore pushed back. First its culture minister said the actual value of the exclusivity deal — which he declined to name — was “nowhere as high.” The country’s former ambassador at large later called the criticism “sour grapes.” And on Tuesday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told reporters that he did not see the deal as diplomatically “unfriendly.”Fans in other Southeast Asian countries are disappointed Ms. Swift isn’t performing elsewhere in the region.How Hwee Young/EPA, via ShutterstockWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Performance by Maestro With Russian Ties Is Canceled in Vienna

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      A Teodor Currentzis concert at the Wiener Festwochen was canceled after the Ukrainian conductor Oksana Lyniv, also on the program, raised concerns about his ties to Russia.When the Wiener Festwochen, a prestigious festival that brings leading international artists to Vienna, announced this spring’s lineup, the backlash was swift and fierce.The festival had planned to make the Russian invasion of Ukraine a focus of its programming, juxtaposing an appearance by the Ukrainian conductor Oksana Lyniv with a concert by the maestro Teodor Currentzis, who has faced scrutiny over his connections to Russia. Critics, including Lyniv, had argued that the pairing was insensitive and ignored the suffering of Ukrainians.Now, after weeks of pressure, the festival has abandoned its plan, saying that it would cancel the appearance by Currentzis while moving forward with the one by Lyniv.“The decision was clear and there was no alternative,” Milo Rau, the festival’s artistic director, said in an interview on Tuesday. “This was the best solution from bad ones.”Since Russia invaded Ukraine, many cultural organizations have severed ties with close associates of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and the government there. Some institutions have been criticized for overreach after canceling performances by Russian artists with no known connections to the government. Others have grappled with how to handle artists who had less clear-cut allegiances.Currentzis, a Greek-born, Russian-trained maestro whose leadership of the Russian ensemble MusicAeterna turned him into one of the world’s most prominent conductors, has been at the center of the discussion because of his relationship with VTB Bank, a Russian state-owned institution that has been under sanctions by the United States and other countries. VTB Bank was the main sponsor of MusicAeterna. Currentzis has also drawn scrutiny for his association with Russian officials: In 2014, Putin awarded Currentzis citizenship by presidential decree.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      An Oratorio About Shanghai’s Jews Opens in China at a Difficult Time

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      “Émigré,” about Jews who fled Nazi Germany, debuts amid U.S.-China tensions and cultural rifts over the Israel-Hamas war. It comes to New York in February.“Émigré,” a new oratorio about Jewish refugees who fled Nazi Germany for Shanghai in the late 1930s, begins with a song by two brothers, Josef and Otto, as their steamship approaches a Chinese harbor.“Shanghai, beacon of light on a silent shore,” they sing. “Shanghai, answer these desperate cries.”The emigration of thousands of Central European and Eastern European Jews to China in the late 1930s and early 1940s — and their survival of the Holocaust — is one of World War II’s most dramatic but little-known chapters.In “Émigré,” a 90-minute oratorio that premiered this month in Shanghai and will come to the New York Philharmonic in February 2024, the stories of these refugees and their attempts to build new lives in war-torn China are front and center.Musicians of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra warming up before a dress rehearsal of “Émigré.” The oratorio will be performed by the New York Philharmonic in February.Qilai Shen for The New York TimesThe piece, composed by Aaron Zigman, with lyrics by Mark Campbell and Brock Walsh, has been in the works for several years, a commission of the Philharmonic, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and its music director, Long Yu. But it is opening at a delicate time, with tensions high between China and the United States and with the Israel-Hamas war spurring heated debates in the cultural sphere.The war in the Middle East is a sensitive subject in China, which has sought to pitch itself as a neutral broker in the conflict, though state-controlled media has emphasized the harm suffered by civilians in Gaza while giving scant coverage to Hamas’s initial attack. Israel has expressed “deep disappointment” at China’s muted response to the Hamas attack. Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, on Tuesday called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and for “the restoration of the legitimate national rights of Palestine.”In recent weeks, promotional materials in China for “Émigré” have rarely mentioned its plot, and listed its Chinese title, “Shanghai! Shanghai!” The major state-owned Chinese news outlets did not cover the premiere this month, although an English-language television channel for foreign audiences did.The creators of “Émigré,” which takes place during the Second Sino-Japanese War, said they hoped the piece would help underscore a shared sense of humanity in a time of renewed strife. “I don’t think music and politics really belong in the same sentence,” Zigman said. “I just want people to be human and kind, and there are certain parts of this piece that help that vision.”Brock Walsh, who wrote the lyrics to “Emigré,” with Mark Campbell.Qilai Shen for The New York TimesThe composer Aaron Zigman said, “Our project is really about bridging cultures and humanity and love, hope, loss and tragedy.”Qilai Shen for The New York TimesIn 2019, Yu, worried that the stories of Jewish refugees in his hometown were being forgotten, came up with the idea for the piece. He approached the New York Philharmonic, which has had a partnership with the Shanghai Symphony since 2014, about commissioning the work together.Yu said he never expected the oratorio to premiere in wartime but hoped that its message would still resonate.“We always make the same mistakes in our lives, and we have to learn from history,” he said. “We can be inspired by the kindness and support that Shanghai showed in this moment.”To shape the music and the plot, Yu turned to Zigman, a classically trained film and television composer who has returned to classical music in recent years, including with “Tango Manos” (2019), a piano concerto he wrote for the pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Yu has long known Zigman, who has composed more than 60 Hollywood scores, including “The Notebook,” and he and Thibaudet suggested the idea for a tango concerto.For “Émigré,” Zigman said he was eager to create a “multicultural love story” that drew attention to the violent struggles unfolding in Asia and Europe at the time. Those include the 1937 massacre in Nanjing, an eastern Chinese city, in which tens of thousands of Chinese civilians were killed by occupying Japanese forces; and Kristallnacht, the wave of antisemitic violence carried out by Nazis in 1938.“Our project is really about bridging cultures and humanity and love, hope, loss and tragedy,” Zigman said.Rehearsing in Shanghai. Yu, the orchestra’s music director, worried that the stories of Jewish refugees in his hometown were being forgotten.Qilai Shen for The New York Times“Émigré” tells the story of Otto, a rabbinical student, and Josef, a doctor, who leave Berlin for the port city of Trieste, Italy, and board a boat headed for Shanghai.The brothers are anguished about leaving their parents and homeland but try to settle into life in China. Josef is interested in traditional Chinese medicine and visits an herbal medicine shop, where he meets Lina, the daughter of the owner, who is grappling with the death of her mother in Nanjing. They fall in love, but their cross-cultural union draws scorn from their families.Shanghai’s role as a haven for Jews was a historical fluke. Britain, France and the United States insisted that Beijing let them set up settlements there in the 1840s. By the 1930s, the settlements had grown into a sprawling city. But the Chinese government controlled who was issued visas to enter mainland China, including for arrival at Shanghai’s docks.When Japan seized east-central China in 1937, including the area around Shanghai, the Nationalist Chinese government could no longer inspect visas at the city’s riverfront docks. But the Japanese military did not start controlling visa access to the area until shortly before the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941.The result? Nobody was controlling who entered China at Shanghai. It became an open port for those four years: Foreign travelers were welcomed and could stay in the Western settlements.Mark Campbell, who wrote the libretto with Brock Walsh.Qilai Shen for The New York TimesCampbell, who has written librettos for more than 40 operas, said he hoped that the stories of refugees in “Émigré” could be a modern-day lesson.“It’s very important for the audience to go away and remember there was a time in this world when one country embraced the refugees of another country,” he said.In Shanghai, the stories of Jewish residents are preserved at the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum. The core block of China’s legally designated Jewish ghetto, where the Japanese required Jews in Shanghai to live during the last three years of the war, has been preserved. Its Central European-style townhouses and house-size synagogue still stand.But much of the surrounding area has been bulldozed amid rapid growth in recent decades, causing concern among preservationists. Two gargantuan office buildings, each 50 stories tall, cast huge shadows toward the little synagogue at midday.At least 14,000 Jews lived in the ghetto during the war, and possibly several thousand more. Another 1,000 to 10,000 secretly lived elsewhere in the city. (Almost all of Shanghai’s Jews left after the war, many resettling in the United States.)A building in what was the Jewish ghetto in Shanghai. The core block has been preserved amid encroaching urban growth.Jackson Lowen for The New York TimesShanghai was a deeply troubled place in the years that “Émigré” takes place: packed with Chinese refugees as well as Jewish ones, frequently short on food and potable water, and racked by epidemics of disease. Opium was smoked openly and prostitutes gathered on street corners.Among the ghetto’s residents was Michael Blumenthal, who fled from Nazi Germany in 1939 at 13 and who much later became treasury secretary under President Jimmy Carter. Blumenthal said in an interview with The New York Times in 2017 that when he was a teenager, a Japanese police station was just down the block from the synagogue. He and others had to apply at the station for permission to leave the ghetto during the war, and by the final year, it was almost impossible to obtain permission.Trucks patrolled Shanghai, not just in the ghetto, to collect those who succumbed to illness. “I used to see them driving around the city, picking up dead bodies,” Blumenthal said. “The city was vastly overcrowded, it was dangerous, there was constant fighting among factions, and shootings.”“Émigré” received wide attention in China when it was announced in the summer. With a Chinese and American cast, the work was hailed as a sign of the power of cultural exchange between China and the United States in a time of increasing tensions. Yu joined Zigman, Campbell, Walsh and Gary Ginstling, the president and chief executive of the New York Philharmonic, for a news conference at the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum celebrating the commission.When the joint Shanghai-New York project was announced, “Émigré” was hailed as a sign of the power of cultural exchange between China and the United States in a time of increasing tensions. Qilai Shen for The New York Times“Émigré” will have its American premiere in February with the same cast, and Ginstling said in a recent interview that he did not expect the Israel-Hamas war would lead to alterations in the work, which Deutsche Grammophon recorded in Shanghai for release next year.“Things change quickly in the world,” he said. “We are committed to our role as cultural ambassadors.”The Philharmonic’s version, directed by Mary Birnbaum, will be semi-staged and incorporate some visual elements, including images of devastation from World War II and the Second Sino-Japanese War.Several New York Philharmonic musicians took part in the premiere in Shanghai, and a group of Chinese musicians will play at the premiere in New York.At a recent rehearsal for “Émigré” at Jaguar Shanghai Symphony Hall, choir members sang Jewish, Christian and Buddhist prayers, which open the work. “Grant peace in high places,” they sang in Hebrew.“Sacred presence blossoming,” they sang in Chinese.The cast includes the tenor Arnold Livingston Geis as Josef; the tenor Matthew White as Otto; the soprano Zhang Meigui as Lina; the mezzo-soprano Zhu Huiling as her sister, Li; and the bass-baritone Shenyang as their father, Wei Song.Between rehearsals, Zhang said that she was trying to stay focused on the music, and that she hoped “Émigré” could provide some relief from the war.“We’re going through a very difficult time in this world,” she said, “but I think music has to be separate from this.”Zhang added that she had found some comfort in a song at the end of the first act called “In a Perfect World.” In that piece, Josef sings:If I ruled the world,Mine to redesign,I’d stop every gunshot, every war.Now, forevermore.Li You More

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      Ahead of APEC Summit, Musicians from Philadelphia Orchestra Tour China

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      President Biden and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, face a host of thorny geopolitical issues as they meet Wednesday in San Francisco: trade, Taiwan and the war between Israel and Hamas.But they have found some common ground in the cultural sphere. Both leaders have in recent days praised the visit by a delegation of Philadelphia Orchestra musicians to China.The musicians arrived there last week to mark the 50th anniversary of the orchestra’s celebrated 1973 visit to Beijing, when it became the first American ensemble to perform in Communist-led China as the two countries worked to re-establish official ties.Now, with the relationship between the United States and China at its lowest point in four decades, their leaders have highlighted the role of music in easing tensions.Mr. Biden said in a recent letter to the orchestra that its visit this month could help “forge even closer cultural ties, forever symbolizing the power of connection and collaboration.”Mr. Xi, in a letter released on Friday, said the Philadelphia Orchestra had long played a role in strengthening the connection between the two countries, describing its 1973 visit as an “ice-breaking trip.”“Music has the power to transcend borders,” he wrote, “and culture can build bridges between hearts.”Daniel R. Russel, a former senior American diplomat now at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said that cultural exchange could build connections between China and the United States and help “refute political caricatures” that citizens of each country may hold.But there are limits, he said, given the heated rhetoric and the increasingly intense rivalry between Beijing and Washington over national security and economic issues.“It’s a very slender thread to use to knit together such a huge gash in the relationship,” he said.Cellist John Koen of the Philadelphia Orchestra, right, going over the score with his counterpart from the China National Symphony Orchestra on Friday, for a concert at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing.Todd RosenbergOn Friday, a dozen musicians from the Philadelphia Orchestra joined their counterparts from the China National Symphony Orchestra for a concert at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing. The program included Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Leonard Bernstein’s overture from “Candide,” and Chinese folk songs.“It was an incredibly impactful moment,” said Matías Tarnopolsky, the orchestra’s president and chief executive. “It had the effect of focusing the attention on the arts and culture and on the beauty and the power of music to effect change.”The visit by the Philadelphia musicians, who are also traveling to Shanghai, Suzhou and Tianjin, has received wide attention in China. Many news outlets have in recent days published nostalgia-filled stories about the 1973 visit, during which the Philadelphia Orchestra, led by Eugene Ormandy, performed inside a packed hall in Beijing, a year after President Richard M. Nixon’s historic visit.At the time, China was in the final years of the Cultural Revolution, during which most traditional music, including Western classical music, was banned. Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong’s wife, made sure that the concert — which featured a favorite work, Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony (known as the “Pastoral”) — was broadcast across the country.The orchestra has been all over Chinese state media in recent days. An article about Mr. Xi’s letter to the orchestra appeared on Saturday’s front page of People’s Daily, the main newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, just under the announcement that Mr. Xi would meet Mr. Biden in San Francisco. China Central Television, the state broadcaster, aired interviews showing Philadelphia Orchestra staff members and musicians praising Mr. Xi’s letter.The focus on the orchestra’s visit reflects the Chinese government’s recent efforts to shore up its global image by emphasizing more personal ties, said David Bandurski, co-director of the China Media Project, an independent research program based in the United States.“Emphasizing people-to-people exchanges is a way to stress the positives from the standpoint of China’s leadership,” he said. “They harken back also to an earlier time when Ping-Pong was sufficient to get both sides back to the table.” More

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      The Met Commissions an Opera About Abducted Ukrainian Children

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      The work, by the Ukrainian composer Maxim Kolomiiets and the American playwright George Brant, is inspired by the accounts of mothers whose children were taken during the war.The Metropolitan Opera announced Monday that it had commissioned a new opera about Russia’s abduction and deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children, the latest action by the company to show support for war-torn Ukraine.The work, which will be written by the Ukrainian composer Maxim Kolomiiets, with a libretto by the American playwright George Brant, tells the story of a mother who makes a long and perilous trip to rescue her daughter, who is being held at a camp inside Crimea.While the characters in the opera are fictional, the story is based on real-life accounts by Ukrainian mothers who have described making the harrowing 3,000-mile journey from Ukraine into Russian-occupied territory, and back again, to recover their children from the custody of the Russian authorities.Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said the aim was to “support Ukraine culturally in its fight for freedom.”“I can’t think of a better way of doing that,” he said, “than having an opera that actually documents an aspect of the war that underscores the individual heroism of the Ukrainian people in the face of the most dire and horrible atrocities and circumstances.”Kolomiiets, 42, a composer and oboist who has written two operas and an array of orchestral, chamber and solo works, said that he felt “a responsibility to create something great and to show something very dignified about my country.”Brant has been conducting research that will help him write the libretto.Sylvia Jarrus for The New York Times“The objective is not only to draw attention to Ukraine but also to shed light on similar situations around the world where mothers endure immense suffering while trying to protect their children,” he said. “I want people to empathize with this pain and use any opportunity they have, at various levels, to prevent this kind of pain from happening.”Brant, who is known for “Grounded,” an acclaimed Off Broadway play that the Met is also turning into an opera, said that he hoped to “contribute in a small way to Ukraine’s cause as it faces this staggering challenge to its existence.”Writing and staging new operas takes time. The Ukrainian opera, which the Met hopes will come to its stage by 2027 or 2028, is the latest display of the company’s support for Kyiv. The Met was one of the first cultural organizations to announce after Russia’s invasion that it would not engage performers or institutions that supported President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and it cut ties with one of its biggest stars, the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko.Since then, the Met has helped create the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, an ensemble of refugees who fled the war and artists who stayed behind, which has led two international tours. The company has also staged concerts in support of Ukraine and hung banners forming the Ukrainian flag across the exterior of the theater.The opera is being developed as part of a joint commissioning program by the Met and Lincoln Center Theater, which began in 2006.The idea for commissioning an opera by a Ukrainian composer came during a meeting last year between Gelb and Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska. The Canadian Ukrainian conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson, who is married to Gelb and leads the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, was also present. Ukrainian cultural officials spread word of the opportunity and received 72 applications from composers, which were vetted by the Met.The Met draped the opera house in the Ukrainian flag in February when it held a benefit concert for Ukraine.James Estrin/The New York TimesGelb said that the Met had selected Kolomiiets because of his experience in opera as well as his deep understanding of Ukrainian musical traditions. Zelenska praised the project, saying in a statement that “the pain of Ukrainian mothers that the world should hear will be heard.”Russia’s abduction of Ukrainian children has received wide attention, especially after the International Criminal Court earlier this year issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes, saying he bore criminal responsibility for the children’s treatment. The court also issued a warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, who has been the public face of a Kremlin-sponsored program in which Ukrainian children and teenagers have been taken to Russia.Brant said he had been moved after reading news reports about Ukrainian mothers. The opera will feature workers from Save Ukraine, one of several charity groups helping mothers make the trek to find their children.“I feel like there’s thousands of stories that could be told and should be told about this conflict, but this one seemed to convey both the scale of the horror that the Ukrainians face and the courage and resilience of its people,” Brant said.Kolomiiets, who has been living in Germany since last year, said he expected his score would be “gentle, naïve, emotional and even dramatic.” He said that he tries to envision a peaceful and thriving Ukraine.“The story has a happy ending,” he said of the opera. “And it’s really important for us to have a happy ending right now.”Anna Tsybko contributed research. More

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      ‘Barbie’ Debuts in Saudi Arabia, Sparking Delight, and Anger

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      Denounced in some Middle Eastern countries for undermining traditional gender norms, the hit movie is finding an audience in Saudi Arabia, illustrating the region’s shifting political landscape.On Friday night, Mohammed al-Sayed donned a pale pink shirt and denim overalls to join a friend at a movie theater in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, where the men settled in to watch a film about a doll on a mission to dismantle the patriarchy.Similar scenes played out across the conservative Islamic kingdom last weekend, as women painted their nails pink, tied pink bows in their hair and draped pink floor-length abayas over their shoulders for the regional debut of the movie, “Barbie.” While critics across the Middle East have called for the film to be banned for undermining traditional gender norms, many Saudis ignored them.They watched as the movie imagined a matriarchal society of Barbie dolls where men are eye candy. They laughed when a male character asked, “I’m a man with no power; does that make me a woman?” They snapped their fingers in delight as a mother delivered a monologue about the strictures of stereotypical femininity. Then, they emerged from the darkened theaters to contemplate what it all meant.“The message is that you are enough — whatever you are,” said Mr. al-Sayed, 21, echoing the Ken doll’s revelation.“We saw ourselves,” said Mr. al-Sayed’s friend, Nawaf al-Dossary, 20, wearing a matching pink shirt.Watching Barbie’s search for identity and meaning, Mr. al-Sayed said he was reminded of the fraught period when he started college and wasn’t sure of his place in the world. He said he believed that the movie had important lessons for men as well as women.“I felt like my mom should see the film,” he said.“All of our families — all families,” Mr. al-Dossary said, laughing.That this was happening in Saudi Arabia — one of the most male-dominated countries in the world — was mind-boggling to many in the Middle East. When “Barbie” opened on Thursday in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, it arrived suddenly and overwhelmingly. Moviegoers rushed to prepare Barbie-pink outfits. Some theaters scheduled more than 15 showings a day.Moviegoers wore pink during a screening of “Barbie” in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Thursday.Ali Haider/EPA, via ShutterstockA snide headline in the Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq al-Awsat declared that Saudi cinemas had become “havens for Gulf citizens escaping from harsh restrictions” — a twist in a country whose people once had to drive to Bahrain to watch movies.Eight years ago, there were no movie theaters in the Saudi kingdom, let alone any showing films about patriarchy. Women were barred from driving. The religious police roamed the streets, enforcing gender segregation and shouting at women to cover up from head to toe in black.Since he rose to power, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 37, has done away with many of those restrictions while simultaneously increasing political repression, imprisoning conservative religious clerics, leftist activists, critical businessmen and members of his own family.Even now, despite sweeping social changes, Saudi Arabia remains a state built around patriarchy. By law, the kingdom’s ruler must be a male member of the royal family, and while several women have ascended to high-ranking positions, all of Prince Mohammed’s cabinet members and closest advisers are men. Saudi women may be pouring into the work force and traveling to outer space, but they still need approval from a male guardian to marry. And gay and transgender Saudis face deep-seated discrimination, and sometimes arrest.So as word spread through the kingdom that “Barbie” would debut on a delayed schedule — a sign that government censors were most likely deliberating over it — many Saudis thought the movie would be banned, or at least heavily censored. Bolstering their expectations was the fact that neighboring Kuwait banned the film last week.Lebanon’s culture minister, Muhammad Al-Murtada, also called for the film to be banned, saying that it violated local values by “promoting homosexuality” and “raising doubts about the necessity of marriage and building a family.” It is unclear if the government will follow his recommendation.Even in Arab nations that have allowed the film to be shown, it has faced intense criticism. The Bahraini preacher Hassan al-Husseini shared a video with one million Instagram followers calling the movie a Trojan horse for “corrupt agendas.”Even while Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has done away with many social restrictions in Saudi Arabia, he has increased political repression.Pool photo by Ludovic MarinAnd in Saudi Arabia, not everyone is receptive to the film. To the entrepreneur Wafa Alrushaid, who suggested that the film be banned in her country, its messages are a “distortion of feminism.”“I’m a liberal person who has called for freedom for 30 years, so this isn’t about customs and traditions, but the values of humanity and reason,” she told The New York Times. The film, she argued, excessively victimizes women and vilifies men, and she objected to the fact that a transgender actress had played one of the Barbies.“This film is a conspiracy against families and the world’s children,” Ms. Alrushaid, 48, declared.Many Arab critics of the movie expressed views similar to those of some American politicians and right-wing figures who have castigated the film as anti-male. The tussle in the Middle East over the movie illustrates how battles that sometimes echo the so-called U.S. culture wars are playing out on a different landscape.The animated film “Lightyear,” which showed two female characters kissing, was banned in several countries in the region last year. And six Gulf Arab countries issued an unusual statement last year demanding that Netflix remove content that violates “Islamic and societal values and principles,” threatening to take legal action.In Kuwait, religious conservatives have become more vocal in recent years, Gulf analysts say, broadcasting views that many Saudis would be hesitant to express in public now, fearing repercussions from the government.“Banning the movie ‘Barbie’ fits into a larger tilt to the right that’s increasingly felt in Kuwait,” said Bader Al-Saif, an assistant professor of history at Kuwait University. “Islamist and conservative forces in Kuwait are relishing in these culture wars to prove their ascendancy.”Some Kuwaitis expressed astonishment that they would have to travel to the Saudi kingdom to watch the movie. Many pointed out the irony that Kuwait and Lebanon, despite objecting to the film, had long provided greater freedom of expression than many other Arab countries.Streaming out of movie theaters in Riyadh, people who watched “Barbie” seemed to leave with their own understanding.Lining up for “Barbie” in Dubai. Many Arab critics of the movie have expressed views similar to those of some American right-wing figures who have castigated the film as anti-male.Ali Haider/EPA, via ShutterstockYara Mohammed, 26, said that she had enjoyed the movie, dismissing the Kuwaiti ban as “drama.”“Even if kids saw it, it’s so normal,” she said.To Abrar Saad, 28, the message was simply that “the world doesn’t work without Ken or Barbie; they need to complete each other.”But to teenage girls like Aljohara and Ghada — who were accompanied by an adult and asked to be identified only by their first names because of their ages — the film felt deeper.“The idea was pretty realistic,” said Aljohara, 14, wearing a hot pink shirt underneath her black abaya. She said she liked that the film ended with a type of equality between men and women.“But it wasn’t nice that it ended with equality,” interjected Ghada, 16. “Because I feel like equality is a little bit wrong; I feel like it’s better for there to be equity because there are things a boy can’t do but you can do them.”Asked if they ever thought they would watch such a movie in Saudi Arabia, both exclaimed, with laughter: “No!”“I was expecting them to censor a lot of scenes,” Ghada said.In fact, it did not appear censors had cut anything major. A scene in which Barbie declares that she has no vagina and Ken no penis remained, as well as a scene with the transgender actress. The Arabic subtitles were rendered faithfully — including the word patriarchy.Hwaida Saad More

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      Can a Rapper Change Italy’s Mind About Migrants?

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      In mid-March, weeks after a ship wrecked on Italy’s Calabrian coast, the waters of the Mediterranean Sea were still releasing ashore what remained: planks of wood, engine parts, children’s shoes, bodies. The season of drowning migrants had come early this year.Listen to This ArticleFor more audio journalism and storytelling, More

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      A Finnish Official Plays the Cello to Support Ukraine, Irking Russia

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      Anders Adlercreutz’s recording of a patriotic Ukrainian song was widely circulated online, and prompted a response from Moscow.Anders Adlercreutz, Finland’s minister for European affairs, has long been a critic of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, denouncing President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for leading a “crazy war” and calling on Western governments to send tanks to Kyiv.On Sunday, Mr. Adlercreutz tried a different tactic: he posted a video of himself on social media playing a patriotic Ukrainian song on the cello to mark the conflict’s 500th day. The video also shows images of bombed buildings, juxtaposed with phrases like “unspeakable aggression,” as well as hopeful symbols like sunflower fields and a dove in flight.500 days of unprovoked aggression, countless war crimes, lost futures – but also of encouraging success. Ukraine fights for its independence, but also for Europe’s. Finland stands by you, today and tomorrow.В пам’ять про тих, хто віддав своє життя за свободу. pic.twitter.com/P5D9WpPH39— Anders Adlercreutz (@adleande) July 9, 2023
      “I wanted to provide comfort to Ukrainians here in Finland and in other countries,” Mr. Adlercreutz said in an interview, “and to make clear that they are not ignored, and their culture, their music and their language is not forgotten.”To his surprise, the video garnered more than a million views across a variety of platforms, and he received a flood of comments from Ukrainians moved by the performance.Russian officials tried to portray the video as part of an effort by Western countries to sway public opinion ahead of a NATO meeting this week that was attended by President Biden and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. (Finland became the alliance’s 31st member state in April, a strategic defeat for Mr. Putin.)In a television appearance this week, Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia’s foreign ministry, denounced the NATO meeting as a “colorful performance” that was “in the worst traditions of Western manipulation,” according to Russian news reports. She went on to say that “Finnish government ministers are recording cello solos in support of Ukraine.” Russia has in recent months been highly critical of Finland for joining NATO, saying it has “forfeited its independence.”The video features the Ukrainian song “The Red Viburnum in the Meadow,” written during World War I, which has long been associated with Ukraine’s fight for independence.Since the invasion, the song has emerged as a popular anthem for the Ukrainian cause. A few days into the war, the Ukrainian musician Andriy Khlyvnyuk, from the band Boombox, recorded a defiant rendition with a rifle slung across his chest.Last year, Pink Floyd released a reworked version of the song, featuring Mr. Khlyvnyuk, to raise money for the people of Ukraine, its first new track in almost three decades.Since the invasion, Ukrainians have used music to bring attention to suffering, following in a tradition of impromptu performances by ordinary citizens in war zones, in the Balkans, Syria and elsewhere. A cellist last year performed Bach in the center of a deserted street in Kharkiv, with the blown-out windows of the regional police headquarters behind him.Mr. Adlercreutz, who began studying cello as an 11-year-old, said he had been inspired by Ukrainian musicians, including Mr. Khlyvnyuk. He recorded “The Red Viburnum in the Meadow” in February at the Parliament House in Helsinki, playing different musical lines that he later mixed together.He said it was important to use culture to bring attention to Ukraine.“I want to send the message to Ukrainians that we see you, we recognize you, we support you, and we don’t forget where you are coming from and what you are going through,” he said. “We can easily forget the war, but this is a message that we really have to repeat.” More

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      Vietnam Bans ‘Barbie’ Movie Over South China Sea Map

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      Greta Gerwig’s upcoming film has been banned in the country for its use of a map depicting territory that both China and Vietnam claim as their own.There will be no “Barbie” world in Vietnam this summer.The Southeast Asian nation has banned the release of “Barbie,” the upcoming film directed by Greta Gerwig, because of a scene that includes the so-called nine-dash line, a U-shaped dotted line on a map showing territory in the South China Sea that both China and Vietnam claim as their own.The nine-dash line is used in Chinese maps to mark its claim over as much as 90 percent of the South China Sea.While an international tribunal at The Hague ruled in 2016 that China had no legal basis for its claims, Beijing has yet to concede to the ruling and has instead sought to dominate the waters, carrying out aggressive incursions and developing military installations.Vietnam, with its long-held acrimonious ties to China, said on Monday that the new film would not be released in the country because of its use of the line, according to Vi Kien Thanh, the head of the Vietnam Cinema Department. The decision was made by the National Film Appraisal and Classification Board, which is responsible for licensing and censoring foreign movies in Vietnam.Responding to state media on Monday, Mr. Thanh confirmed that “Barbie” was banned because of “the illegal image of the ‘cow’s tongue line’ in the film,” using the common Vietnamese phrase for the nine-dash line.Vietnam Plus, a state newspaper, wrote that the decision to include the line “distorts the truth, violates the law in general and violates sovereignty of Vietnamese territory in particular.”China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei all have territorial claims in the South China Sea, which include islands and other strategic maritime features.“Barbie,” which stars Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling and a host of other celebrities, was scheduled to be released in Vietnam on July 21. Some moviegoers in the country welcomed the government’s ban. Hoang Xuan Bach, a 23-year-old university student, said the producers should have known better than to include the map.“I hope this movie will flop,” he said.This is not the first time Vietnam has banned films for including scenes with the nine-dash line. “Uncharted,” a 2022 action film by Sony featuring the actor Tom Holland, and DreamWorks’ 2019 animation “Abominable,” were both dropped from the nation’s box offices for the same reason.Vo Kieu Bao Uyen More