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      The Met Opera Races to Reopen After Months of Pandemic Silence

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      The company, which faced steep losses after the pandemic forced it to shut down on March 12, 2020, is working to lure operagoers back to its 3,800-seat theater. Tera Willis was backstage at the Metropolitan Opera, painstakingly adding strand after strand of salt-and-pepper hair to a half-finished wig — one of dozens she and her team were racing to finish in time for opening night later this month after the pandemic had kept performers from getting measured until mid-August.“I would love about six months,” Ms. Willis, the head of the company’s wig and makeup department, said. “We have six weeks.”The chorus was back at work, singing through masks.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesA performer warmed up at a rehearsal for Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” which will open the season.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesIn the Met’s underground rehearsal rooms, chorus members were straining to project through the masks they must rehearse in, a few pulling the fabric a couple of inches from their face for a moment or two. Just outside its gilded auditorium, which has been empty since the pandemic forced the opera house to close a year and half ago, stagehands were reupholstering some worn red velvet seats. Beneath the arched entry to the opera house, an electrician was installing wiring to make some of the heavy front doors touchless.Reopening after the long shutdown was never going to be easy for the Metropolitan Opera, the largest performing arts company in the nation. Unlike a Broadway theater, which must safely bring back one show, the Met, a $300-million-a-year operation, is planning to mount 196 performances of 22 different operas this season, typically changing what’s on its mammoth stage each night.The financial stakes are high: The Met, which lost $150 million in earned revenues during the pandemic, must now draw audiences back to its 3,800-seat opera house amid renewed concerns about the spread of the Delta variant. Will people return in force, after getting out of the habit of spending nights at the opera? Will the Met’s strict vaccine mandate — it will ban audience members under 12, who cannot yet be vaccinated — reassure operagoers, especially older ones? How much will travel bans hurt the box office, where international visitors made up as much as 20 percent of ticket buyers?The Met is warily watching sales. It has sold about $20 million worth of tickets for the season so far, the company said, down from $27 million at the same point in the season before the pandemic. Subscriptions, which have been steadily eroding at American symphony orchestras and opera companies in recent years, are down by about a quarter from before the pandemic, but officials expect more subscribers to renew when they feel safe about attending. Strong recent sales, and the speed with which the Met sold out an affordably priced performance of Verdi’s Requiem on Saturday to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, offered hope that audiences will come back.The financial uncertainty led the Met to seek concessions from its unions, some of which will be restored if and when the box office approaches prepandemic levels. The ensuing labor disputes further complicated the reopening: The company did not reach a deal with its stagehands until July, delaying summer technical rehearsals, and only settled another, with its orchestra, late last month, removing the last major barrier to reopening.Riyo Mitsui, one of the Met’s wigmakers, at work.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesSo now the company is gearing up quickly, preparing to marshal the forces of roughly 1,000 singers, orchestra players, conductors, dancers and actors scheduled to perform this season. It started with two free performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection,” outdoors at Lincoln Center last weekend; will perform Verdi’s Requiem on Saturday, its first performance back inside the opera house, a concert that will be broadcast on PBS; and it will finally open the opera season on Sept. 27 with Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” its first opera by a Black composer. The company is hoping that “Fire” and another contemporary opera — “Eurydice,” by Matthew Aucoin — will draw new audiences. The whole organization is getting ready to reopen. Keith Narkon, a ticket seller, was with his colleagues behind the Met’s box-office windows, stuffing tickets into envelopes — and happy to be back after the virus had taken away their jobs for more than a year.In the box office, employees are getting the tickets ready for opening night.Krista Schlueter for The New York Times“It was just this numbness,” Mr. Narkon, a self-described opera fanatic, said of the long shutdown. As the opera house buzzes with preseason anticipation, there are still bruised feelings from the labor battles, but there is also a palpable sense of relief to finally be back in the building together and working again after so many months of unemployment checks and uncertainty.“You don’t realize how much you respect the job until you don’t have it,” said Phillip D. Smith, a stagehand who has worked at the Met for over 20 years, as he ripped the worn velvet off a seat cushion.“You don’t realize how much you respect the job until you don’t have it,” Phillip D. Smith, a stagehand who has worked at the Met for over 20 years, said as he reupholstered a chair.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesThe doors to the auditorium got a fresh coat of paint.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesBut life backstage is still far from normal, as company officials keep a close eye on the Delta variant, and the steps they must take to keep the company and the audience safe..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The company’s vaccination mandate is so strict that an unvaccinated telecom worker who arrived for a job was turned away. A special patron’s entrance area has been turned into a testing center where people in rehearsals must get nasal-swab tests twice a week. And to keep audience members apart from the performers, the first two rows of seats in the auditorium will be blocked off through the end of the year.“On one hand, it’s frightening and frustrating to see the rate of infection,” said Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Met. “But it’s so thrilling to see the possibility within grasp of actually opening performances.”Workers cleaned one of the stairways at the opera house.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesSome bitterness lingers over the labor disputes, which were resolved when the company’s three biggest unions agreed to new contracts that cut their pay modestly, saving the company money by moving some workers to a different health care plan and reducing the number of guaranteed full-time members of the orchestra and chorus.In the props department, where scenic artists were working to create corn on the cob and a pat of butter for a Thanksgiving dinner in the upcoming production of “Fire,” Ryan Hixenbaugh, an artist, lamented that some of the work had been finished in California, where Met management outsourced work after locking out its stagehands in December in the fight over pay cuts. “We had the capability of making all the scenery for all of these operas here,” Mr. Hixenbaugh said.With the opera house empty for more than a year, there was sprucing up to do: Keishla Nieves cleaned a brass railing.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesWith no audiences and no crowds for a year and a half, there was no need for stanchions to direct people to the Box Office. But they will soon be put in service again.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesSome stagehands made ends meet during the shutdown, and the lockout, by building outdoor shelters for the city’s new al fresco dining spots. Others got work in television production, which rebounded before live performance.When they returned to the Met in July, the stagehands found an enormous amount of work. For more than a year, the opera house had sat still, as if frozen in time. The decades-old machinery that makes the Met’s stage run was not built for such dormancy.Two scenic backdrops that had been hanging for months had fallen to the ground earlier in the year. The wheels on the Met’s wagon system — which is powerful enough to quickly shuttle its mammoth sets of Ancient Egypt, Imperial China or Fin-de-Siècle Paris on and offstage — were flattened by the weight of the sets that had been left on top of them. And parts of the fly system, made up of wire rope lines and riggings, had rusted.“To leave it sitting still for that length of time was terrifying,” said David Feheley, the Met’s technical director. “So many of these systems have lasted as long as they have because of constant attention.”Stagehands built sets backstage. When they returned to the opera house, they found that the stage machinery needed a great deal of maintenance work.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesTo accommodate all the urgent maintenance work, the Met’s technical rehearsals were pushed from the beginning of August to the end of the month. One opera, Gluck’s “Iphigénie en Tauride,” was canceled.The orchestra saw 11 of its 96 regular full-time members retire or leave their jobs during the pandemic, according to the orchestra committee, which negotiates labor issues on behalf of the musicians. A number of veteran stagehands retired too.The company hopes the excitement of working together again will outweigh any residual resentment.“The Met is maybe slightly fractured,” Mr. Gelb said, “but it is a family.”The Met is planning 196 performances of 22 different operas this season, which means a lot of ironing.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesPaul Tazewell, the costume designer for “Fire,” said that it was odd not to be able to see the faces of performers, who have been staying largely masked.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesAt this stage of the pandemic, it’s a family that can’t have any members under the age of 12, and not just in the audience. The Met’s performers cannot be young, either. In “Boris Godunov,” which is scheduled to open on Sept. 28, a part that is often sung by a boy soprano will be given to an adult mezzo-soprano. And in “Fire” — which is based on a memoir by Charles Blow, an Opinion columnist for The New York Times — a 13-year-old, Walter Russell III, will play the role of young Charles, who is supposed to be 7.“I have been trying to get into the mind of a 7-year-old kid,” Mr. Russell said.In the props department, scenic artists prepared a Thanksgiving dinner for the upcoming production of “Fire.”Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesTo reopen smoothly, the Met’s staff members still have numerous battles to wage.Everything from fabrics for costumes to machinery for stage lights to basic materials like plywood and steel are proving difficult to obtain because of pandemic supply-chain problems. And booking the international performers opera relies on has become a mess of unpredictable red tape, between visa troubles and virus-related travel restrictions.One of the few times performers can take their masks off these days is when they are being fitted in the costume shop, for photos that are taken to help designers take in the effect of each costume.“If there’s an unspoken feeling, normally I would be able to see that on a performer’s face, but I can’t access that,” said Paul Tazewell, the Tony-winning costume designer for “Fire.”A model of the “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” set.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesBut, come Sept. 27 — if all goes as planned — the masks will come off, the Sputnik chandeliers will ascend, the curtain will go up and live opera will be back onstage.Zachary Woolfe contributed reporting. More

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      Classical Music Looks Ahead to a Fall in Flux

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      How will performances feel in the midst of pandemic regulations? Will institutions respond in actions, not just words, to calls for racial equity?Normally, when I look ahead to a new season, I have a pretty good idea of what the performances will be like.But it goes without saying that this is not a normal time. So even with usually sure bets — a new piece by a composer who has excited me in the past; recitals by performers I cherish; great casts in operas old and recent — it’s hard to know what the performances this fall will feel like. The very experience of gathering in concert halls is in flux with the lingering challenges of the pandemic.It looks as if vaccine mandates for audience members will be routine; I’m with those who see this move as the only way to make performances feel safe. But will masks be required or optional? Will there be full capacity, or some spacing in the audience? Will children be allowed, even if they’re still unvaccinated?And even with precautions, will audiences — especially ones that tend to be older, like those for many orchestras and opera companies — feel safe enough to come back? Will musicians gathered together on stages and in cramped pits convey confidence?Again, what will it feel like?And other crucial issues loom. Just months into the pandemic, when nationwide protests against racial injustice broke out after the killing of George Floyd, classical music was forced to grapple anew with questions of relevance, diversity and inclusion. One major institution after another issued statements condemning discrimination and pledging to do better at connecting with the diverse people they serve. Will these words be reflected in policies and programs?The Metropolitan Opera is speaking to the moment while addressing a gaping hole in its history. It will open its return season with “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” by the composer Terence Blanchard and the librettist Kasi Lemmons, based on a memoir by the New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow about growing up poor and Black in rural Louisiana. This will, shockingly, be the first opera by a Black composer to be presented by the company since its founding in 1883.In this case, I know what to expect, having reviewed the work’s 2019 premiere at Opera Theater of St. Louis, and can eagerly recommend this musically original, dramatically affecting and wrenchingly personal opera. Blanchard, a jazz trumpeter who has written acclaimed film scores, describes “Fire” not as a jazz opera, but as an opera in jazz. What he means, I think, is that jazz naturally permeates his compositional voice, but his score is symphonic — subtle, intricate, complex — taking an essentially traditional approach to opera as drama, with some inventive strokes.The Met’s vaccination policy means that it will not allow children under 12, which might threaten its holiday presentation of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe Met is requiring proof of vaccination from everyone in the audience, and will not allow children under 12, since they are not yet eligible for the vaccines. Will this affect the company’s abridged, English-language version of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” this holiday season? The production typically attracts lots of parents with children. The company’s website says that, should young children be able to be vaccinated this fall, they will of course be welcome. If not, it would seem untenable for the Met to go forward with a family-friendly entertainment in December.Nagging concerns like these — along with the threat of cancellations because of virus outbreaks — may well linger in all the performing arts..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}As for the New York Philharmonic, this season it will not have access to David Geffen Hall, which is in the midst of an extensive, long-awaited renovation. The orchestra will perform mostly at Alice Tully Hall, the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall.Some intriguing programs reveal serious attempts to bring in composers from underrepresented groups and to showcase exciting younger artists, without neglecting the core repertory. Dalia Stasevska will lead a program (Oct. 20-23) featuring works by Missy Mazzoli, John Adams and, of special interest, Anthony Davis, the winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his opera “The Central Park Five.” Davis’s “You Have the Right to Remain Silent,” a clarinet concerto written in 2007 and revised four years later, is its composer’s autobiographical depiction of an encounter with the police, and is therefore more timely than ever. Anthony McGill, the Philharmonic’s superb principal clarinetist (and the orchestra’s only Black player) is the soloist.Earlier in the month (Oct. 14-16), the Philharmonic’s music director, Jaap van Zweden, leads a seemingly more traditional program — but with a twist that shows the subtle ways in which concerns about racial and gender representation are affecting the concert experience. At the Rose Theater — more intimate than Geffen Hall — Leif Ove Andsnes will play Robert Schumann’s beloved Piano Concerto, but will open the concert with Clara Schumann’s solo Romance in A Minor, a nod to a composer slowly getting her long-belated due.Jaap van Zweden, the New York Philharmonic’s music director, will lead the orchestra at different venues as David Geffen Hall is closed for renovations.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesYou might have thought that a powerhouse institution like Carnegie Hall would want to come roaring back. It says much about this still-dicey moment for classical music, in terms of both financial and public health, that the hall is pacing itself and keeping its fall season relatively light. Its opening night on Oct. 6 offers Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who leads the Metropolitan Opera and the Philadelphia Orchestra, in a program that attempts to be both a gala celebration and a statement of purpose.The program, featuring the Philadelphians, opens with Valerie Coleman’s new “Seven O’Clock Shout,” written during the pandemic, followed by Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2, with the dazzling Yuja Wang as soloist. Next comes that gala standard, Bernstein’s Overture to “Candide.” The Iranian-Canadian composer Iman Habibi’s “Jeder Baum spricht” (2019), commissioned by the orchestra for Beethoven’s 250th anniversary last year, was written in dialogue with Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth symphonies. Here it will lead into an account of Beethoven’s Fifth, setting off a full Beethoven symphony cycle with Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra, originally planned for last year.These classic symphonies will be interspersed with contemporary pieces — which, though not a novel idea, is a good one. It feels all too familiar for a complete Beethoven symphony cycle to dominate Carnegie’s season.But will it in practice? It may well be that for some time yet, hearing even standard works played beautifully will feel restorative, almost miraculous.Yet given the crises we have endured and the urgent challenges that remain, I hope my wish wins out that institutions try harder to connect and engage, to foster living composers and new generations of artists. I’ve long believed that many classical ensembles, especially major orchestras, spend too much time thinking about how they play and not enough about what they play and why they play it. We all love the standard repertory. But an ensemble puts more on the line and fosters classical music as a living art form when it presents a new piece, champions a neglected older work or takes a risk with unconventional programming.These things have always mattered crucially in my thinking — now, more than ever. If this results in what some may see as grading on a curve — by giving extra credit, in a sense, to artists who reach out and take risks — so be it. The status quo will no longer suffice. More

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      What’s on TV This Week: 9/11 Specials and ‘American Crime Story’

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      Several networks will air specials timed to the 20th anniversary of Sept. 11. And “American Crime Story” will return for a third season.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Sept. 6-12. Details and times are subject to change.MondayTHE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY (1968) 10:15 p.m. on TCM. Clint Eastwood is slated to return to theaters this month with “Cry Macho,” a modern-day western. The role gives Eastwood an opportunity to dust off one of his signature looks: grizzled man with a cowboy hat. The quintessential example of that look can be found in this Sergio Leone odyssey, in which Eastwood plays a bounty hunter caught up in a plot that involves buried treasure and betrayal. While the movie — and its score, by Ennio Morricone — has become a classic, initial reception was mixed. This “must be the most expensive, pious and repellent movie in the history of its peculiar genre,” Renata Adler wrote in her review for The New York Times in 1968. “If 42nd Street is lined with little pushcarts of sadism,” she added, “this film, which opened yesterday at the Trans-Lux 85th Street and the DeMille, is an entire supermarket.” Critical opinion regarding “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly” has improved since — though the same cannot necessarily be said of 42nd Street.TuesdayBeanie Feldstein in “Impeachment: American Crime Story.”Tina Thorpe/FXIMPEACHMENT: AMERICAN CRIME STORY 10 p.m. on FX. After dramatizing the trial of O.J. Simpson and the murder of Gianni Versace, the anthology series “American Crime Story” turns to the events leading up to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton for its third season. This telling focuses on the perspective of the women involved, with Beanie Feldstein starring as Monica Lewinsky, Sarah Paulson as Linda Tripp, Annaleigh Ashford as Paula Jones and Edie Falco as Hillary Clinton. Clive Owen plays President Clinton. Lewinsky is a producer of the season, and discussed her involvement with it in a recent interview with The Times. “The reality is that this story has been part of a collective conversation for 20 years,” she said, “and as I evolve, as the world evolves, it comes to have different meanings.”BITCHIN’: THE SOUND AND FURY OF RICK JAMES (2021) 8 p.m. on Showtime. The life of the funk singer Rick James is revisited in this documentary, which aims to give a holistic view of James’s complicated legacy. Directed by Sacha Jenkins (“Fresh Dressed”), “Bitchin’” looks at James’s roots — including his enlistment in the Navy — his music and his famously wild lifestyle while also examining his relationships with women. The film is one answer to a question that the critic Candice Frederick asked in a recent article in The Times: “How do you reckon with the man who is just as famous for committing sexual assault and perpetuating misogyny in the music industry?”WednesdayWOMEN OF 9/11: A SPECIAL EDITION OF 20/20 WITH ROBIN ROBERTS 9 p.m. on ABC. Women who were affected by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, share their experience in this two-hour special hosted by Robin Roberts. Among those interviewed is Genelle Guzman-McMillan, who spent more than 24 hours buried in the rubble of 1 World Trade Center before being rescued. Also at 9 p.m., Vice TV will air TOO SOON: COMEDY AFTER 9/11, which explores the impact of the attacks on the work of comedians. Interviewees in that documentary include David Cross, Ahmed Ahmed, Janeane Garofalo, Hari Kondabolu, Cedric the Entertainer, and Marc Maron.ThursdayBenedict Cumberbatch in “Doctor Strange.”Disney/MarvelDOCTOR STRANGE (2016) 8 p.m. on TNT. If you watched the just-released “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” over the weekend and are in the mood for more Marvel, here’s a chance to revisit “Doctor Strange.” The actor Benedict Cumberbatch plays a neurosurgeon who goes on a spiritual journey, while Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tilda Swinton and Rachel McAdams also have major roles. Manohla Dargis called the film “giddily enjoyable” in her review for The Times. “Doctor Strange,” she wrote, “is part of Marvel’s strategy for world domination, yet it’s also so visually transfixing, so beautiful and nimble that you may even briefly forget the brand.”FridayDATELINE 10 p.m. on NBC. On Friday night’s special episode of NBC’s “Dateline,” Lester Holt interviews the family members of passengers and crew members who died on United Airlines Flight 93. Several other networks will also air programming timed to the 20th anniversary of 9/11. On History Channel, 9/11: THE LEGACY, airing at 7 p.m., looks at stories of children whose lives were impacted by the attacks. At 8 p.m., CBS will air THE RACE AGAINST TIME: THE C.I.A. AND 9/11. And at 9 p.m., the documentary DETAINEE 001 (2021) on Showtime looks at the case of John Walker Lindh, who became known as the “American Taliban.”ILANA GLAZER PRESENTS COMEDY ON EARTH: NYC 2020-2021 11 p.m. on Comedy Central. For some counterprogramming, consider this hourlong comedy special, which brings together an array of stand-up performances that riff on life during the pandemic, with Petey DeAbreu, Alison Leiby, Larry Owens, and Sydnee Washington.SaturdayYannick Nézet-Séguin conducting the Met Orchestra in 2019. Nézet-Séguin will lead the orchestra in Verdi’s “Requiem” to recognize the 20th anniversary of 9/11, in a performance that will air on PBS.Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting the Met Orchestra in 2019. Nézet-Séguin will lead the orchestra in Verdi’s “Requiem” to recognize the 20th anniversary of 9/11, in a performance that will air on PBS.GREAT PERFORMANCES: VERDI’S REQUIEM: THE MET REMEMBERS 9/11 8 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Saturday programming recognizing the 20th anniversary of 9/11 includes this special episode of PBS’s “Great Performances,” which features Verdi’s “Requiem.” Misty Copeland will host. The Met Opera’s music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, will conduct the orchestra, which will be joined by the singers Ailyn Pérez, Elina Garanca, Matthew Polenzani and Eric Owens.Sunday2021 MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS 8 p.m. on MTV. The rapper and singer Doja Cat is slated to host this year’s edition of the MTV Video Music Awards. Nominees for the top prizes include Justin Bieber, Megan Thee Stallion, Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift; performers are to include Olivia Rodrigo, Camila Cabello, Lil Nas X, Foo Fighters and Kacey Musgraves. More

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      Review: The Met Opera Reunites, With Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’

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      After a year and a half, the company’s forces came together for an outdoor performance of the sprawling, ecstatic symphony.The Metropolitan Opera hardly ever plays concerts at home at Lincoln Center. But before Saturday evening, the company had opened its season with Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, the “Resurrection,” once before.In 1980, a bitter labor battle kept the Met closed more than two months into the fall. When peace was re-established, Mahler’s sprawling journey of a soul, ending in ecstatic renewal, seemed just the thing — and the symphony, with its enormous orchestral and choral forces working in intricate lock step, is nothing if not a paean to cohesion.“The ‘Resurrection’ Symphony almost chose itself,” James Levine, then the Met’s music director, said at the time. It was, he added, “a way for the company to get in touch with itself again.”If there has ever been another time this company needed to get in touch with itself, it is now. That two-month hiatus four decades ago seems like child’s play compared with the situation today.Twenty twenty-one has, like 1980, brought contentious labor struggles — on top of a pandemic that has threatened the core conditions of live performance and kept the Met closed for an almost unthinkable 18 months. Its orchestra and chorus, as good as any in the world, were furloughed in March 2020 and went unpaid for nearly a year as the financially wounded company and its unions warred over how deep and lasting any pay cuts should be.The “Resurrection” Symphony brought the full company and its audience back together in grand style: 90 minutes; an orchestra of 116; a chorus of 100; and 2,500 attending in the park.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesJeenah Moon for The New York TimesJeenah Moon for The New York TimesJeenah Moon for The New York TimesInstituting a vaccine mandate and gradually coming to terms with the unions, the Met inched closer to reopening as the summer dragged on. And on Aug. 24, it removed the final barrier by striking a deal with the orchestra, paving the way for a resurrection — and a “Resurrection.”The company scheduled a pair of free Mahler performances outdoors at Damrosch Park, in the shadow of its theater, on Labor Day weekend, at the start of what has become an opening month. On Saturday, the Met will return indoors for Verdi’s Requiem, in honor of the 20th anniversary of 9/11. And on Sept. 27 the opera season begins in earnest with the company premiere of Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” its first work by a Black composer, and, the following evening, a revival of Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov.”Led by the Met’s music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the “Resurrection” Symphony brought the full company and its audience back together in grand style: 90 minutes; an orchestra of 116; a chorus of 100; and 2,500 attending in the park, as well as hundreds more listening from the street. The mood was a blend of parks concert — one woman tried to muffle the crinkling of her bag of potato chips — and serious focus; a man sitting on the aisle followed along with the score, brightly lit on his tablet.With so much to celebrate, this was indeed a celebratory, smiling reading: Punchy and taut at the start, yes, but without the neurotic, feverish quality that some conductors sustain throughout. There was an overall sense of gentleness and soft-grained textures. The second movement was more sly than sardonic; the climactic burst of dissonance in the third movement was beautiful, not brutal. The chorus, facing the audience in front of the stage and getting its cues from screens, sang with mellow sweetness.It goes without saying that outdoor classical performance is never ideal. (Speaking from the stage, Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, claimed, tongue perhaps in cheek, that Lincoln Center’s president had promised no helicopters in the area for the duration of the symphony. Well. …)Ying Fang, the soprano soloist, is a symbol of the company’s present and future.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesAmplified violin sections are inevitably harsh; woodwinds tend to get swamped by the strings and brasses, even more than usual in Mahler’s dense orchestration. And so much of this and every symphony’s power depends on musicians massed in a room together with their audience. Under the open sky, even on a gorgeous, mild evening like Saturday, the visceral and emotional impact of the music is diffused.But the offstage percussion and brasses finally sounded like they were coming from a real distance, as they rarely do in a concert hall. And there is special resonance in a great opera company performing this score, so redolent of the music-theater repertory, especially Mahler’s beloved Wagner. The stormy start of “Die Walküre”; the motif of the sleeping Brünnhilde from the end of that work; the mystically stentorian choruses of “Parsifal”; the sighing winds as Verdi’s Otello dies — all echo through the visionary excess of the “Resurrection.”It was moving to see Denyce Graves, a classic Carmen and Dalila at the Met 20 or 25 years ago, onstage and dignified in the great alto solos, even if her voice is a shadow of its former plush velvet. The soprano soloist, Ying Fang, a radiant Mozartian, was a symbol of the company’s present and future.While no one is ever hoping for distractions during Mahler, there was something heartwarming about the siren wailing down 62nd Street and tearing into the symphony’s majestic final minutes. What would a New York homecoming be without noise, and more noise? More

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      When Opera Livestreams Became Live Performances

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      This summer, three European productions, previously available to American audiences only online, were at last accessible in person.I should start with a confession: Rarely during the pandemic have I been able to watch an entire livestream through.Work is one thing: If I’m “attending” something for an assignment, I try to bring to it the focus of a before-times performance — phone off, sound system on, ideally in the dark. But nearly all my extracurricular experiences online have been nothing like my old days off. I would never walk in and out of Carnegie Hall during a recital or pull out my phone mid-Schubert to scroll through Instagram or write an email.Yet that’s exactly what the past year and a half has been like. Life and livestreams are inherently incompatible; there is always a dog to walk, a dinner to cook, a meeting to join. I have seen the greatest musical artists in the world in fragments from the seat of a Peloton; in a small window at the corner of a laptop screen; and, more times than I would like to admit, in bed.If anything has been likely to hold my attention from start to finish, it’s opera. That’s partly baked into the form; concerts, for all their recent engineering feats, generally can’t offer the multisensory experience of theater. And, miraculously, there have continued to be new productions during the pandemic — mostly in Europe, where they often premiered to small audiences or empty houses.Three of those — Dmitri Tcherniakov’s staging of Weber’s “Der Freischütz,” Marina Abramovic’s project “7 Deaths of Maria Callas” and a production of Strauss’s “Elektra” by Krzysztof Warlikowski — were at one point available only as online streams for Americans like me, barred from casually traveling to most of Europe.Ausrine Stundyte, front, in the title role of “Elektra” at the Salzburg Festival.Bernd Uhlig/Salzburg FestivalBut this summer, a halcyon time of reopened borders and the return of large-scale productions in full houses, I was able to see all three again, now in person: “Freischütz” and “7 Deaths” at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and “Elektra” at the Salzburg Festival in Austria.That juxtaposition — livestream and live performance — is worth reflecting on as a wave of opening nights heralds the arrival of a new season; as international travel becomes newly precarious; and as orchestras and opera houses consider whether to weave livestreams into their regular programming.Some projects, it should be said, have emerged independent of any live audience or presentation — even traditional ones, such as the Paris Opera’s new production of Verdi’s “Aida,” which was altered to look better online than in the house (where critics were invited to see it, and mostly panned it). One of the great treasures of the pandemic has been Opera Philadelphia’s digital shorts, with contributions from the likes of Angélica Negrón and Tyshawn Sorey. Boston Lyric Opera developed “Desert In” as a mini-series, bringing the art form into the Netflix era.The productions I saw both onscreen and onstage, though, were conceived for the opera house. Opera just isn’t a filmic medium, even if certain composers anticipated it — such as Richard Wagner, with the immersive theatrical experience he pioneered in Bayreuth, Germany.But not every composer is Wagner, and although the streamed productions I later saw live had flashes of revelation, those moments were few and far between in what was, on balance, limited by the medium: the subjective and inevitably narrow perspective of the camera, the engineered flattening of sound. Virtual opera, unless designed as such, is ultimately just a document.Tcherniakov’s “Freischütz” production splits the stage into two halves: the bottom a set for the actors, and the top a surface for projections.Wilfried HöslEspecially in a staging as acutely dramatic as Tcherniakov’s “Freischütz.” It abandons the work’s fantasy Romanticism, setting it in the corporate penthouse of Kuno, a chief executive who behaves like a Mafia boss.The other roles, too, bear little resemblance to any traditional production. To bridge the gap between libretto and concept, the stage is treated as a split screen, with the set occupying the bottom half and the top serving as a surface for projected text messages — and, during the overture, background information on each character in Tcherniakov’s treatment. (The camera mostly shows either the set or the projection, rarely both, which in the final scene makes for a confusing resolution that is easily legible in the house.)Crucially, the introductions reveal that Kaspar — in the libretto a jealous rival of the protagonist, Max, he wants to marry Kuno’s daughter, Agathe — suffers from a trauma that, we later learn, manifests as a kind of multiple personality disorder. (He also takes on the demonic role of Samiel.)As sung by the bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen, Kaspar is the opera’s horrifying black heart. In a crowd of excellent performances — including Golda Schultz’s heavenly Agathe and her character’s Sapphic subplot with Anna Prohaska’s Ännchen — it’s nearly impossible to take your eyes off the fierce and angular intensity of Ketelsen’s face.A viewer of the livestream wouldn’t necessarily get that. The score’s focus in its climax is on Max, and the camera follows, with a close-up of the tenor Pavel Cernoch’s fright and anguish. In the theater, however, I could see that Ketelsen’s scowl was more pronounced than ever — a sign that the opera’s traditionally happy ending would here be anything but.“7 Deaths of Maria Callas” features arias performed by sopranos including Adela Zaharia (bottom left) and campy videos starring Willem Dafoe and Marina Abramovic.Wilfried HöslAlso at the Bavarian State Opera, Abramovic’s “7 Deaths” — which pays homage to Callas through seven arias and a prolonged final scene that imagines that famed soprano’s final day — worked better as a livestream, because it worked so intermittently as a live performance. With in-person singers accompanying big-screen videos of Abramovic and Willem Dafoe artfully acting out death scenes inspired by the arias, the piece relegates opera to mere soundtrack.Abramovic is an undeniably electric presence. But the scale of the opera house — the vast distance it can put between a performer and audience member — negates much of the charged intimacy on which she has built her career as a performance artist. At least the livestream of the work’s premiere allowed for a proper zoom on every facial expression and gesture — while also reducing her to just an image on a screen, less powerful than she can be at her best.In Salzburg, Warlikowski’s “Elektra” — using the breadth of the unusually wide Felsenreitschule stage — was almost defiantly unfilmable, with multiple parts of the set in use nearly all the time. The opening credits of the streamed version doubled as a tour of the whole space: a pool (where Elektra’s father, Agamemnon, was murdered) and showers, as well as a glass box filled with luxurious furniture and the vast rock walls of the theater, a canvas for projections.Tanja Ariane Baumgartner, left, and Stundyte in Krzysztof Warlikowski’s production of “Elektra.”Bernd Uhlig/Salzburg FestivalThese close-ups presage the limits of the filmed production, in which the camera tends to focus on only one thing at a time, with wide shots largely reserved for the eventually blood-splattered, fly-swarmed walls. The stream did catch chilling details I missed in the theater: Klytämnestra, for example, commanding as sung by Tanja Ariane Baumgartner but easy to miss in a silent moment of handling human organs in a bucket inside the glass box. Or Ausrine Stundyte’s Elektra, wide-eyed and wild-haired from the start, yet progressively more so each time she appears onscreen.But “Elektra” is a musically dense, busy opera that Warlikowski matches in his staging, while the camera lacks the restlessness of a spectator’s eye. The only perspective that would accurately reflect the production would be a wide, straight-on view of the stage — something you might find in the research archive of Broadway shows at the New York Library for the Performing Arts.That problem pales, though, in comparison with the sound of the streamed “Elektra.” I like to believe the story that, ahead of the opera’s 1909 premiere, Strauss told the conductor: “Louder, louder! I can still hear the singers!” Franz Welser-Möst led the Vienna Philharmonic in Salzburg as if that were true (if with a little more of a level head). At its best, this score overwhelms and terrifies. On a laptop, however, it was simply too balanced, with singers and instrumentalists favored equally; no one came out better for it.As Europe again considers whether to close its borders to Americans, and as live performances remain more of a delicate triumph than a given, new productions may return to the small screen. If that happens, I’ll tune in. But I’d rather see you at the opera house. Because this “Freischütz,” “7 Deaths” and “Elektra” affirmed what we already knew: Fundamentally, opera is theater. That couldn’t be more obvious, or more essential. More

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      ‘We’re Like Athletes Here’: The Maestro With a Gym Habit

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      Lorenzo Viotti’s sporty social media posts don’t fit the image of an opera conductor. But they help classical music reach a new audience, he says.AMSTERDAM — Lorenzo Viotti stood before the orchestra, without a baton, conducting with both hands. As the music swelled, his arms swayed. Three fingers plucked the air, then he swept forward to guide the sound to a crescendo.The 31-year-old Swiss maestro, who recently became the chief conductor of both the Dutch National Opera and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, is a very physical conductor. But that would hardly come as a surprise to anyone who knows him from social media. He is also an avid boxer, tennis player and swimmer, who skateboards to work, it seems (though he has embraced Dutch bicycling culture as well).On Instagram, nearly 53,000 followers see images of Viotti looking dapper in bow tie and tails, as might be expected, but also shirtless, revealing a muscular torso. A recent post, taken from a spread in the Dutch edition of Men’s Health magazine, which honored him as August’s “man of the month,” shows Viotti chalking his hands before lifting himself up on gymnast’s rings.His action-man social media posts are part of a plan to shake up perceptions about people who enjoy classical music, Viotti said in an interview during a recent rehearsal break. “As a conductor today, it’s not just enough to focus just on the music,” he said.But he added quickly that he regards social media as merely “a tool,” to excite curiosity. “You can maybe be young, and do crazy sports,” he said, but without “a deep argument artistically, and maybe philosophically,” as to why classical music was interesting, opera companies and orchestras wouldn’t retain the new audiences they found.Viotti conducting the Dutch National Opera’s orchestra in rehearsal for Zemlinsky’s “Der Zwerg,” which premieres Saturday.Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York TimesLast week, in preparation for the opening of the Dutch National Opera’s new season, Viotti said, he was waking at dawn to spend an hour and a half working out before heading to the theater for rehearsals of two productions: Zemlinsky’s “Der Zwerg” (“The Dwarf”), based on a short story by Oscar Wilde, which will premiere Saturday; and a dramatic staging of Haydn’s “Missa in Tempore Belli,” (“Mass in Time of War”), opening two days later.Viotti will conduct both works until late September, before he leads the Philharmonic on Sept. 25 and 26 in a concert of works by Rossini and Richard Strauss, at the Concertgebouw here. In March 2022, he will return to the opera for Puccini’s “Tosca.”“We are like athletes here,” he said. “We don’t consider ourselves like that, but our discipline is like any champion state football player. I cannot go out the night before a rehearsal because I have to be sharp.”“We make sacrifices,” he added, “because what we do is a precious thing.”After nearly a year and a half of pandemic-mandated cancellations, Viotti wanted to start the new season in Amsterdam with a jolt, he said. The city has been his anticipating his arrival since the Dutch National Opera’s artistic director, Sophie de Lint, announced his appointment in 2019.“Lorenzo was very much in demand, so we had to be fast,” de Lint said in an interview. “He really is one of the most gifted conductors of today. On top of that, he is an unbelievable ambassador for opera, and classical music in general.”Viotti was born into a musical family in Lausanne, Switzerland. One of his sisters, Marina Viotti, is a mezzo-soprano, and the other, Milena, is a professional horn player, as is his brother, Alessandro. Their father, Marcello Viotti, was the chief conductor of the Munich Radio Orchestra and the music director of Teatro La Fenice in Venice when he died in 2005, at 50.Viotti was 14 at the time. “As a child, I don’t have a lot of memories of him at work, but I learned a lot from him as a man, as a dad,” he said. “We did scuba diving together, gardening together, playing football. Those to me are the most important memories. The conducting memories are not important.”As well as classical, Viotti was exposed to a wide range of musical styles growing up, he said, including hip-hop, rap, funk and soul. He tried his hand at many instruments, studying piano, viola and percussion, and singing in a choir.“My background as a classical percussionist as a rap lover, funk lover, helped me find the groove,” in Haydn’s music, he said. “This is what we miss in classical music.”Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times“My favorite was to play jazz and funk as a drummer,” said Viotti. “My sister, who is now an opera singer, was then in a death metal band, so I played with them. I wanted to have the biggest possible musical vocabulary possible.”He studied orchestral conducting at the University of Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna, as well as piano, voice and conducting at the Lyon Conservatory in France; in 2015, he completed a Master’s degree in conducting at the University of Music Franz Liszt Weimar, in Germany. In the seven years since his graduation, he has conducted renowned orchestras including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France and the Munich Philharmonic.Viotti’s Haydn interpretation will give audiences a sense of his interdisciplinary approach. The choral performance will include live electronic music, mixed by the Israeli composer and D.J. Janiv Oron. The stage direction is by Barbora Horakova, who has also inserted sequences of contemporary dance, choreographed by Juanjo Arqués. It will also feature video projections by Hervé Thiot and stage design by the digital artist Simon Hänggi.“It’s not just randomly adding a bit of rap, and this and that, because it looks cool,” Viotti said. “It has to serve a very strict purpose, which is the drama that we are creating onstage. My background as a classical percussionist as a rap lover, funk lover, helped me find the groove, the flow. This is what we miss in classical music.”The Haydn Mass doesn’t sound much like hip-hop, but its attraction for a percussionist is clear: The timpani part is so prominent that the work is sometimes nicknamed “Paukenmesse,” or “Kettle Drum Mass.” The piece needs to build throughout, to justify the heavy drum strokes of its dramatic finale, Viotti said. Before ending a rehearsal with the orchestra and chorus of the Dutch National Opera last week, he took the musicians back to the work’s lilting beginning.“Now, let’s slow it down,” he told the ensemble. “If you want to catch the attention of someone, you speak softer, but with more intensity.” More

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      After 15 Years in Opera, Martha Prewitt Runs a Farm in Kentucky

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      “It’s Never Too Late” is a new series that tells the stories of people who decide to pursue their dreams on their own terms.Hear the one about the opera singer-turned farmer?There isn’t a punchline. There’s just the pre-dawn wake-up, and the baling, and the 150 heifers, and one with pink eye and the thousand other realities of Martha Prewitt’s new existence.This wasn’t the plan. Growing up on the family farm in Versailles, Ky., two centuries of Prewitt corn and hay and cattle bearing down, the plan was: leave.She did, following a passion for performance into 15 years of classical singing and opera, performing with the Knoxville Opera, Capitol Opera Richmond in Virginia and Charlottesville Opera in Virginia, and earning a Master’s degree in vocal performance along the way. But sometimes passions curdle, and sometimes barn doors blow back open.At 33, following the sudden death of her father last year, Ms. Prewitt came home again. It never seemed possible, doing what he’d done all those years. But there, under the wide Kentucky sky, she discovered that something had shifted. (The following interview has been edited and condensed.)By Morgan Hornsby For The New York TimesTell me about the opera life you’d been leading before this change?I got into opera through choir, in high school. The thrill of singing with an orchestra, the vibration in your bones, being totally in character and completely outside of yourself. There’s nothing else like it.But there are things about the industry that didn’t gel with me, politically and culturally. With a few exceptions, I thought the opera world was operating under an outdated, elitist business model. A few years ago I started to fall out of love.Had you ever considered farming?The farm’s been in the family since 1780 or so. My dad was a farmer from when he could walk. He could do anything: build a house, fix machines, tend to the soil’s pH level, plumbing and electrical work. Farming never seemed right for me, partly because I just didn’t think I could do it. I’m a woman, I’m 5’6” — that was a lot of it.After he passed away in June 2020, I was living at home again to be with my mom, and this little worm started to work its way through my brain: ‘Women can be farmers, too. Maybe you’re not strong now, but maybe throwing hay bales around will make you strong.’What was it that made you take that chance?I always knew I’d eventually inherit the farm, and it means a lot to me that it stays a farm. Who knows what developer would buy it and turn it into some subdivision or shopping center?I started thinking, if it means that much to me, why not take it on? Why not me? Soon I was researching things like regenerative agriculture, or how much chemical to put in the spray mix.Martha Prewitt with the farm manager Sherman Cole, who is showing her how to run the farm. It has been in her family for two centuries.Morgan Hornsby for The New York TimesMs. Prewitt, who had spent her career as an opera singer, working on the farm in Versailles, Ky. She took over the business after performing in operas around the world.Morgan Hornsby for The New York TimesNot the hands of an opera singer.Morgan Hornsby for The New York TimesHow did you get started?Those first few days, I began getting up early and going out with our farm manager, Sherman. At first we’d just feed the cattle together, and then I started working full days with him.I began to love it. If there’s any aspect of farming you don’t like, it’s not long before something different needs to get done. I got stronger. And I learned that I’m pretty optimistic, which is good, because a farmer has to be.How did you find the courage to take on this huge project?My dad once told me, “When things need to get done on a farm, you just have to get them done. There’s no choice.” It’s true, and I’ve learned that suits me. I’m still pretty terrified, but I’ve also started to think, maybe I can be good at this.How has this new life changed you?During lockdown, I didn’t go outside for six weeks. I didn’t even walk out to my car. Now I’m outside every day, for most of the day. I’ve hardly used my computer since moving back, and I don’t watch much TV. I have a much deeper appreciation for nature and the environment — its beauty and also its power.Do you still sing?A lot of what I do these days is driving a tractor. It’s great because I can sing as loud as I want. “Un bel dì vedremo,” from “Madama Butterfly” is one of my favorite arias, and I’ll start singing it in the middle of a field, surrounded by trees and birds and dirt. I’ve sung to cattle a few times. Sometimes bugs fly in my mouth.Ms. Prewitt pets the cattle, which she also sings to. “I’ve sung to cattle a few times,” she said.Morgan Hornsby for The New York Times“If there’s any aspect of farming you don’t like, it’s not long before something different needs to get done,” Ms. Prewitt said. “I got stronger. And I learned that I’m pretty optimistic, which is good, because a farmer has to be.”Morgan Hornsby for The New York TimesWhat would you tell other people who feel stuck and are looking to make a change?Everybody has a different path. In my case, just because all these other farmers have been doing it all their lives, it didn’t make my ability to farm any less.If you’re feeling stuck, being patient and not freaking out about it is so important. Everything you do gives you experience and skills and tools, wherever you go. I ended up finding something much more profound than I’d ever expected. It’s as if I’m working in all times, past, present and future, in the midst of my ancestors who were here before and future generations who will come after me.Anything you wish you’d done differently when you were younger?I wish I’d done 4H.What can people learn from your experience?People always say, “Follow your passion.” Well, I tried that. I sang opera. It ended up not being how I want to spend my life.I took, I don’t know how many, personality tests. Nothing ever said I should be a farmer, except this little nagging voice saying maybe I could.We’re looking for people who decide that it’s never too late to switch gears, change their life and pursue dreams. Should we talk to you or someone you know? Share your story here. More

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      Met Opera Reaches Deal With Orchestra, Paving Way for Reopening

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      The labor deal means that the company, the largest performing arts organization in the nation, is on track to reopen next month after the pandemic kept it closed for more than a year.The Metropolitan Opera has struck a labor deal with its orchestra, officials announced Tuesday, paving the way for its musicians to return to work and for the company, the largest performing arts organization in the nation, to resume performances next month after being shut down for more than a year by the pandemic.After months of uncertainty, and talks that grew contentious at times, the Met said that the players had ratified a labor deal reached with the union representing the orchestra, Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians. The musicians were scheduled to return to work on Monday for their first official rehearsal since the pandemic closed the opera house in March 2020.The agreement concludes several months of tension over how significant future pay cuts would be for musicians, who went for nearly a year without pay during the pandemic.“The members of the Met’s great orchestra have been through Herculean challenges during the 16 months of the shutdown, as we struggled to keep the company intact,” Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said in a statement. “Now, we look forward to rebuilding and returning to action.”The group was the last of the three major Met unions to come to an agreement; without a deal on a new contract for the orchestra, the Met would have likely had to postpone its reopening. Several smaller unions have yet to reach deals.In a joint statement, Adam Krauthamer, the president of Local 802, and the members of the Met’s orchestra committee said that they were “thrilled to be returning to regular performances very soon, and look forward to reconnecting with our audiences.”The four-year deal with the musicians institutes pay cuts of 3.7 percent, with provisions to begin restoring some of that pay after the Met’s box office revenues return to 90 percent of their prepandemic levels, according to a copy of the memorandum of understanding that was obtained by The New York Times and confirmed by participants.A significant amount of the savings in the deal appears to come from reducing the minimum size of the Met’s full-time orchestra to 83 players through attrition, according to the memorandum, down from its current minimum of 90. Many players retired during the pandemic; by not filling all those positions, the Met will save money and rely more on extra players.In recent years, symphony orchestras around the country have sought to save money by cutting back the number of regular full-time players.The Met had been seeking deep cuts. Citing the staggering revenue losses resulting from the pandemic, and the uncertainty over when its box office and donations would rebound, the Met had been seeking to cut the payroll costs for its highest-paid unions by 30 percent, saying that the change in take-home pay would be more like 20 percent. It had offered to restore half of the cuts when ticket revenues and core donations returned to their prepandemic levels.The first of the unions to reach an agreement, the American Guild of Musical Artists — which represents chorus members, soloists, dancers and stage managers, among others — secured salary cuts that fell far short of the management proposal; under the agreement, most types of employees in the union will initially see 3.7 percent cuts to their pay. But that deal saved the Met money, moving the members from the Met’s health insurance plan to the union’s, and by reducing the size of the full-time regular chorus.That contract had been expected to set the pattern for the level of savings expected in deals with the other two major unions, which represent the Met’s stagehands and its orchestra. A provision in the guild’s deal stated that if the other unions struck more favorable deals, the guild’s contract would be adjusted to be brought in line with them.Along with the news of the deal with the orchestra, the Met announced that the orchestra and chorus would give two free performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection,” in Damrosch Park at Lincoln Center on Sept. 4 and 5, conducted by the Met’s music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and featuring the soprano Ying Fang and mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves as soloists. (It also announced a new annual chamber music series of six concerts at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall.)The Met will give its first performance back at the opera house on Sept. 11 with a special concert of Verdi’s Requiem to mark the 20th anniversary of the attacks. The concert will be broadcast live on PBS, hosted by the ballet star Misty Copeland.The Met’s season is scheduled to open on Sept. 27 with Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” the first time the Met is mounting an opera by a Black composer. More