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    Tales of 19th-Century A.I.: Don’t Fall in Love With a Singing Robot

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    Love me, love me, pretend that you love me.One of today’s most popular artificial intelligence apps is Replika, a chatbot service whose users — many millions of them — converse with virtual companions through their phones or on VR headsets. Visually, the avatars are rudimentary. But each Replika offers personal attention and words of encouragement, and gets better at it with each update. There are dozens of A.I. services like this now: imitation humans who promise, via text or voice, to console, to understand, to adore.Many users (men and boys, mostly) are developing long-term bonds with these simulated lovers (“women,” mostly). Some fall into ruin. A young man in Britain tried to assassinate the former queen after plotting with a Replika avatar; and last month a mother filed a lawsuit against Character.AI, another of these apps, after her son killed himself with the encouragement of his virtual “girlfriend.”It all sounds new. It all sounds alarming. Yet these online lonely-hearts are brushing against anxieties at the core of modern art and philosophy — anxieties, as Sigmund Freud wrote more than a century ago, that things not alive may yet have spirits, and that our animistic ancestors were onto something.One of the most famous musical automatons of Enlightenment Europe: a female organist, designed by the Swiss inventor Henri-Louis Jaquet-Droz in 1774.Grisel/RDB/ullstein bild, via Getty ImagesIntricate gearwork drives the automaton’s fingers, which play the organ’s keys. Her eyes move back and forth, and her chest rises and falls as if breathing.Grisel/RDB/ullstein bild, via Getty ImagesThis fall I’ve been thinking about lovers and robots, erotics and mechanics — ever since seeing two performances, both at Lincoln Center, that resonated with all our contemporary worries about art, sex and technology. One was Offenbach’s “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” (1881) at the Metropolitan Opera, which puts an android musician at center stage: the automaton Olympia, whose song and dance captivate and then devastate her human paramour. The other, next door at New York City Ballet, was “Coppélia” (1870), a merry comedy featuring not only dancing machines but also, more troublingly, humans pretending to dance like machines.Is our projection of life onto technology a sign of derangement? Or is it more like wish fulfillment? In both “Hoffmann” and “Coppélia,” grown men fall hard for female contraptions, only to discover the gears and grease that power their music and movement. Singing and dancing, in particular, seem to awaken these men’s archaic passions and juvenile needs, and shatter their rational skepticism about gadgets.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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      Review: Lise Davidsen Meets Puccini in ‘Tosca’ at the Met

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      The powerhouse soprano, already a company stalwart at 37, still seems to be figuring out a character whose moods change on a dime.Aficionados have sometimes criticized the Metropolitan Opera for waiting too long to engage singers with starry careers in Europe, like a sports team that acquires only veterans. Even the loudest complainers, though, would have to praise the Met’s early, deep investment in the powerhouse soprano Lise Davidsen, a generational talent from Norway.Davidsen, 37, made her house debut five years ago in Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades.” The title role in Puccini’s “Tosca,” which she sang on Tuesday in a gala honoring the centenary of the composer’s death, is already her seventh part with the company.With a huge, marble-cool voice that she can pull back to a veiled shadow or unleash in a floodlight cry, Davidsen has been most memorable in works by Wagner and Strauss that have broad vocal lines for her to sail through.She has embodied the mythic longing of Ariadne in Strauss’s “Ariadne auf Naxos” and brought opulent purity to Eva in Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.” Last season, venturing into Verdi with “La Forza del Destino,” she captured Leonora’s eternal woundedness.For saintly, long-suffering figures like Wagner’s Sieglinde and Elisabeth, she’s perfect. Davidsen is tall and statuesque — noble, yet modest. She’s not slow-moving onstage, but there’s something glacial about her. She seems most comfortable when she can settle into a character’s steady state for a few hours and just sing.Tosca is a different beast, and Davidsen still seems to be figuring her out. Puccini’s operas are nothing but endless, changeable business: pocketing letters, discovering keys, spying a knife. Every tiny response is illustrated in the music, and moods shift on a dime. His works require hair-trigger agility, even febrility.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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      Daniele Rustioni, Fixture at the Met Opera, Will Be Its Guest Conductor

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      Beginning next fall, Rustioni will lead at least two operas each season and help provide continuity for the Met as it rebuilds after a wave of retirements.Daniele Rustioni, an Italian conductor who has become a fixture of the Metropolitan Opera in recent years, has been named its principal guest conductor, the company announced on Wednesday.When he joins the Met next season, Rustioni, 41, will be tasked with helping to bring stability and continuity to the Met Orchestra whenever the company’s music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, an ever-busy maestro, is away. The ensemble is still working to rebuild after a wave of retirements during the pandemic.“The chemistry I feel with this orchestra and chorus is quite special,” Rustioni said in an interview. “They give an incredible amount of energy, and they are always super committed.”Rustioni, who will serve an initial three-year term, will lead at least two operas each season, the Met said. He is only the third person in the company’s 141-year history to hold the title of principal guest conductor. Fabio Luisi, the last maestro to occupy the post, was hired in 2010 when the Met was grappling with the unpredictable health problems of James Levine, its former music director.Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s music director since 2018, said that he and Rustioni had shared artistic values, and that “having Daniele in this elevated role is good for the orchestra, good for the chorus and good for opera.”Under Nézet-Séguin, the Met Orchestra has worked to recover from the pandemic, filling 17 vacancies and going on high-profile tours in Europe and Asia. But critics have raised concerns about the Met Orchestra’s quality and consistency.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Soprano Lucy Shelton Makes Waves in Opera at 80

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      Lucy Shelton, a soprano known for her work in the contemporary repertoire, has had a role tailor-made for her in “Lucidity,” an opera about identity and dementia.When the soprano Lucy Shelton opened a recital at Merkin Hall in 2019 with “Adieu à la vie,” a song by Rossini, she was about to turn 75. And though she was not bidding farewell to life as the song’s title suggests, she felt she was done with performing. For decades, she had been one of the most sought-after interpreters of contemporary vocal music. But she had reached a point where “I couldn’t sing the things that I used to sing,” she said in an interview. “And that’s depressing.”“I figured I was probably winding down,” she added. “But then I got wound up again.”On Thursday, Shelton, 80, takes center stage at the Abrons Arts Center in the world premiere of “Lucidity,” an opera about identity and dementia, composed by Laura Kaminsky, with a libretto by David Cote. With a score that calls for a multitude of expressive registers, including floated lyricism and sprechstimme, musically notated recitation, the work is tailored to Shelton’s undiminished dramatic strengths. It’s also a testament to her continuing dedication to her craft. (From New York, where the production is presented by On Site Opera, it travels to Seattle Opera.)After five decades making her name primarily on the concert scene, Shelton finds her engagement calendar increasingly filled with opera. In 2021, she performed in the critically acclaimed premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s “Innocence” in Aix-en-Provence, France. Next season, she will reprise the role at the Metropolitan Opera, making her house debut at 82. “It’s kind of a riot,” she said. “It probably thrills everybody else more than it thrills me.”Shelton performing a passage from “Lucidity,” with Eric McKeever.Ahmed Gaber for The New York TimesShelton, who has premiered over a hundred works by composers including Elliott Carter, Oliver Knussen and Gérard Grisey, is unusual in classical music, where few female singers perform past their 60s.One challenge of staged roles is memorization, which can be made harder by age. In discussing “Lucidity” with Kaminsky, she raised her concerns that she might not be able to perform the whole show from memory. In this production, she will always have either a newspaper or sheet music to hold (her character is an aging musician), so that she has all her lines at hand.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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      Grammy Nominations 2025: See the Full List of Nominees

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      Artists, albums and songs competing for trophies at the 67th annual ceremony were announced on Friday. The show will take place on Feb. 2 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.Beyoncé is the top nominee for the 67th annual Grammy Awards with 11 nods for her genre-crossing “Cowboy Carter.” The LP and its songs will vie for record, song and album of the year, as well as competitions in pop, rap, country and Americana categories.The superstar — who has already won more Grammys than any other artist — leads a pack of contenders that includes Charli XCX, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar and Post Malone (all with seven nods apiece), followed by Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan and Taylor Swift, who have six each.The ceremony, which is scheduled for Feb. 2, 2025 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, will recognize recordings released from Sept. 16, 2023 to Aug. 30, 2024.Here is a complete list of the nominations, which were announced on Friday by the Recording Academy.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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      6 Performances Our Classical Critics Can’t Stop Thinking About

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      Watch and listen to symphonies by Mahler, a new opera by Missy Mazzoli, Ray Chen’s take on video game music and more.The New York Times’s classical music and opera critics attend far more performances than they review. Here are some that hooked them during the past month.Mahler FirstsThe Boston Symphony Orchestra performing ‘Veni, Creator Spiritus’ at Symphony Hall.JOSHUA BARONE Despite years of hearing live music, we both had Mahler firsts this month; for me, the Eighth Symphony and for you the Third. Maybe it says something, that a composer so often performed still has his rarities.ZACHARY WOOLFE Certainly these pieces are difficult to mount; they’re as large in scale as symphonic music gets.Mahler’s Third SymphonyFrom the Philadelphia Orchestra’s performance at Marian Anderson HallBARONE True. I saw the Eighth at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and it was mind-boggling to witness how much money it must have cost. This piece calls for eight vocal soloists, all of which were luxuriously (though imperfectly) cast, two standard choirs and a children’s choir. Mahler described it as having a Barnum & Bailey quality, which I don’t see as an advantage. At Symphony Hall, the opening felt as though it couldn’t have been anything other than an impenetrable wall of sound.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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      Review: ‘Il Trovatore’ at the Met Opera Doesn’t Catch Fire

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      The energy in Verdi’s classic must come from the singing, but the cast of this revival fails to convey the work’s passion.Verdi’s “Il Trovatore” begins with a group of soldiers keeping a weary patrol. “Drive off the sleep that hangs heavy on our eyelids,” they sing, begging their commander to entertain them with a story.His spine-tingling tale riles them up. But the sleepiness never quite lifts from the revival of “Il Trovatore” that opened at the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday afternoon. While this was only the first of 12 performances of David McVicar’s cement-gray staging — a long run — already on Saturday there was the worn-out feeling of a show ready to rest.The conductor Daniele Callegari kept things flowing in the orchestra pit. But particularly in the operas of the Italian bel canto tradition from which “Il Trovatore” (1853) emerged, the energy — in this piece, it’s closer to crazed passion — must come from the singing.The tenor Michael Fabiano is usually the kind of artist who provides that energy, even if his voice can seem tensely pressed out rather than smoothly natural. As Manrico on Saturday, though, he tended listless, sounding strained from his first offstage song. He occasionally made some attractively plangent sounds, but couldn’t conjure this character’s moody restlessness.As Azucena, the mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton sang with neither the raw power nor the varied, surprising colors needed to make this long-suffering woman’s plight feel truly central to the story. Igor Golovatenko, a baritone who has made a strong impression at the Met in Russian works and, last season, in Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino,” was gruffer than usual on Saturday as Count di Luna.Fabiano and Willis-Sorensen. As Leonora, she kindled some of the passion the production was otherwise lacking. Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera“Il balen,” his monologue about his consuming love for the noblewoman Leonora, should unfold in long, aching lines but here was tired and blunt. Even putting a leading man, the bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green, in the supporting role of Ferrando didn’t end up seeming like luxury casting; this part wants richer depths than Green’s voice provided on Saturday.The show did give reassuring signs about the continued health of the Met’s chorus under its new director, Tilman Michael. That group of soldiers early on sounded hearty and believably frightened, and the women of Leonora’s convent sang with evocative mistiness.Best among the soloists was the soprano Rachel Willis-Sorensen as Leonora. She wasn’t entirely comfortable when agility was required, and she didn’t have the vocal heft and commitment to give the “Miserere” in the final act its full stature. But along with some light-filled high notes, there’s a gentle creaminess to her tone that made the aria “D’amor sull’ali rosee” feel earnest and true.Thanks to Willis-Sorensen, some embers of passion glowed near the opera’s end. But it was too little, too late, for a performance that never caught fire.Il TrovatoreContinues through Dec. 6 at the Metropolitan Opera, Manhattan; metopera.org. More

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      Met Opera and Singer Injured in Onstage Fall Settle Decade-Old Lawsuit

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      Wendy White, a veteran mezzo-soprano, was performing when she fell in 2011. Her suit, which claimed negligence, had been one of the company’s longest-running court cases.More than a decade after she was injured in a fall from a platform on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera while singing in a production of “Faust,” the veteran mezzo-soprano Wendy White has settled her lawsuit against the company.Ms. White, who says she suffered nerve and muscle damage that prevented her from singing professionally after the accident in 2011, had been expected to return to court this month. But she recently reached a deal with the Met and a scheduled trial was called off. Neither side disclosed details.“Under the terms of the confidential agreement we’re not permitted to comment,” the Met said in a statement. A lawyer for Ms. White declined to comment.The settlement brings to an end one of the longest-running legal disputes in the Met’s 141-year history. The case dragged on amid rounds of legal filings and appeals — and efforts by New York State lawmakers to help Ms. White. She was injured during the Dec. 17, 2011, performance of Gounod’s opera about selling one’s soul to the devil while singing the role of Marthe.Ms. White was walking from a backstage staircase to an elevated platform onstage when a piece of scenery broke and the platform collapsed. She fell eight feet. She did not break any bones, but was taken to the hospital for injuries.The Met said at the time that her injuries did not initially appear to be serious. But Ms. White, who sang more than 500 performances at the Met after making her debut as Flora in Verdi’s “La Traviata” in 1989, never appeared on its stage again.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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      Circe and Muse No Longer: A New Opera Reconsiders Alma Mahler

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      “Alma,” premiering this week at the Vienna Volksoper, views its often-vilified protagonist through a feminist lens: as a thwarted composer and mother.At the end of 1901, the budding composer Alma Schindler received a 20-page letter from Gustav Mahler laying out the expected terms of their future life together.She was 22 years old; he was nearly two decades older, an established composer and the director of the Vienna Court Opera. She had to stop writing music, he wrote, because “if we are to be happy together, you will have to be my wife, not my colleague.” Later he added: “You must surrender yourself to me unconditionally, make every detail of your future life dependent on my needs.”Soon after, the couple wed. Looking back years later, she wrote of the incident: “The iron had entered my soul and the wound was never healed.”Ella Milch-Sheriff’s opera “Alma,” which premieres on Saturday at the Vienna Volksoper, positions this decision as a turning point in the life of Alma Mahler-Werfel. She outlived Mahler by more than 50 years and came to be associated — as a lover, a supporter, an object of obsession or an inspiration — with some of the best-known artists of the 20th century, including Walter Gropius, Franz Werfel, Arnold Schoenberg and Oskar Kokoschka.“When she gave up her composing, she, in a way, killed her own soul,” Milch-Sheriff said in an interview at the Volksoper. “After that, she didn’t feel she deserved to have children because she’d already killed her own children, which were her future creations that were never born.”“Alma” unfurls in reverse chronology, with acts focusing on Mahler-Werfel’s lost children.Lisa Edi for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More