Opera North’s Cavalleria Rusticanawas designed to be detachable: it premiered as part of the company’s 2017 Little Greatsseason, appearing alongside a variety of fellow one-act operas rather than just the customary Pagliacci. For this season’s outing, however, director Karolina Sofulak has coupled it only with Rachmaninoff’s Aleko, in which another insular society (this time a bohemian commune) is fractured by a love triangle turned fatal. Sofulak goes further still, explicitly linking the two operas by conceiving Aleko and Cavalleria’s Alfio as the same man, 20 years apart, and haunted – in every sense – by a crime he is doomed to repeat.
Both stagings shift the action of their operas significantly: Cavalleria Rusticanatrades sun-kissed Sicily for 1970s communist Poland, and Aleko’sgypsies become the free-loving denizens of a 1990s surfers’ colony, with designs by Charles Edwards (sets) and Gabrielle Dalton (costumes) doing delectable justice to both settings. If the former, with its stripped-back aesthetic and prevailing unease, packs more of a wallop than the candy-coloured latter, the same might well be said of the operas themselves: Rachmaninoff’s episodic scorecan’t quite match Mascagni’s, neither for momentum nor for word-painting, richly evocative though it undoubtedly is.
As both Alfio and Aleko, bass-baritone Robert Hayward is magnetic: no snarling villain, despite a voice carved from granite, but rather a stolid, introspective figure whose self-torture slowly but surely bubbles up and into outward violence. Tenor Andrés Presno’s Turiddù is as indulgently Italianate as the production isn’t, although he seems physically more at ease as Rachmaninoff’s carefree Lover, while mezzo soprano Anne-Marie Owens is a suitably implacable Mamma Lucia; she also returns, Erda-like and unaltered, to pronounce the young lovers’ deaths at the conclusion of Aleko.
Spirit of independence … Elin Pritchard as Zemfira in Aleko. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian
Sofulak thankfully avoids stereotyping the women who incur Alfio/Aleko’s rage. Lola, elegantly sung by Helen Évora, is enigmatic, visibly divided in her own affections, while Elin Pritchard’s vivacious, bright-toned Zemfira embodies the commune’s spirit of independence without slipping into coquettish caricature. Most fascinating of all is Giselle Allen’s magnificent Santuzza: her progress from self-effacing piety to unfettered fury – with a hint of Mary Magdalene along the way – as electrifying to hear as it is to watch.
The Orchestra of Opera North, conducted by Antony Hermus, does a fine job of matching both the restraint of Sofulak’s Cavalleria(though it’s a joy to hear the reins loosened in the Intermezzo) and the gilt edges of the Rachmaninoff, and the Chorus likewise brings characteristic polish to proceedings. Indeed, the final choral ensemble of Alekoin particular is as arresting as anything conjured up by Mascagni: more evidence in favour of occasionally finding Cava companion other than Pag, whether or not it’s a perfect match.
Idles’ fifth album starts with an arpeggiating piano and ends on a short, unshowy sax solo. One bouncing track, Dancer, is about the pleasure of bodies moving “cheek to cheek” and “hip to hip”; it features backing vocals by James Murphy and Nancy Whang from club-rock deities LCD Soundsystem. Another Tangk high point, the slow-burning Grace, imports the pensive synth reverberations of LCD’s track Someone Great.
Given that Idles’ pulverising first three LPs were fuelled by terse menace and guitar firepower, a major shift is clearly under way. This was a Bristol band who made their name taking down xenophobia and toxic masculinity with righteous, punk-adjacent aggro, one whose attention to musical detail always elevated them beyond the genre’s riffy indignation. Now they appear to be pupating into something else again: a rock band aiming for expansion even as they pursue more nuance.
Nigel Godrich, sometimes referred to as the sixth member of Radiohead, co-produced Tangk, alongside Idles guitarist Mark Bowen and go-to console jockey Kenny Beats, opening the door to further adventurous sound-making. Drones, blurry whines, instrumental ad libs and synth-like hoverings percolate away in the background of a number of Tangk’s tracks, adding depth and hue.
What’s more, frontman Joe Talbot does less seething and more singing. He delivers a wider palette of emotions – sometimes delicately, sometimes soulfully; employing a little sprechgesang in places. There’s even a waltzing piano track, A Gospel. Billed as an album of love songs, Tangk moves Idles further along the line demarcated by 2021’s Crawler; that of a band growing out of a well-understood niche and into a wider kind of power. If there is a bridge between the two records, it’s Crawler’s mighty, old-timey waltz The Beachland Ballroom, where Talbot really flexed his inner crooner.
He doesn’t entirely abandon ferocity and kneejerk pronouncements though. A more route-one song called Hall & Oates thrashes away in vintage style. Talbot’s intense delivery of Dancer makes dancing sound more like a fight (or a particularly lively bout of boot-knocking).
One of the album’s most well-realised tracks, Gift Horse, packs Idles’ usual explosive propulsion. It’s a bop. “He puts the foot down and see you later,” Talbot huffs, of the song’s equine subject, but he could well be describing his band. He still does a great line in distilled epigrams. “Don’t let the pricks take your inch to a mile,” he instructs on the prowling, minimal Pop Pop Pop.
Over the years, though, Idles’ frontman has been candid about his band’s modus operandi and politics, as well as his own background (a carer to his mother before her death) and his own flaws, not least his stuttering path towards sobriety. Tangk finds Talbot thinking hard about love, empathy and gratitude – not qualities you would casually associate with the cathartic fury Idles first brought to the table, but very much part and parcel of the path they have been on.
Both Talbot and guitarist and co-writer Bowen are parents; now, when Talbot sings about “my baby”, he most often means his young daughter, now aged four. (In 2017, he and his then partner lost their first daughter, Agatha, who was stillborn.)On Gift Horse, it’s “his baby” who, with guileless logic, doesn’t see the point of kneeling before a new king. “Fuck the king, he ain’t the king, she’s the king!” concludes Talbot crudely, but accurately. “No God, no king, I said love is the thing,” he underlines on Grace; a sentiment that recurs on Tangk.
Writing in the Big Issue, Talbot expounded a kind of manifesto for where Idles are now. Quoting bell hooks’s All About Love and Aesop’s Fables, he writes: “I soon came to realise that if I want empathy and grace, I have to first emit empathy and grace. I realised with Tangk that I wanted love. I needed love. So I had to make love and emit love.”
Hence an album of love songs – to a man, to horses and a new relationship – and a novel coining, Pop Pop Pop’s “freudenfreude”; the opposite of schadenfreude – feeling joy at others’ joy. Mostly, Tangk succeeds in shunting Idles along towards a place where they can sound bigger without going faster.
On songs such as the slow-building ballad Roy, they get there. At the climax, Bowen’s guitar is barely recognisable as a fuzzy Doppler stutter, drummer Jon Beavis is more than up to job of incrementally notching up the pressure and Talbot is howling “baby, baby, baby” with a murky kind of soul. There is often hand-wringing about where the next festival headliners are going to come from. No longer just parochial rabble rousers, Idles are moving on up.
Musicians of the Belgrade Philharmonic is warning that the ensemble is on the brink of collapsing.
During a concert on Friday, Feb. 9, 2024, the musicians of the Belgrade Philharmonic read a letter to the audience that pointed out their difficult position, and organizational and material problems that remain unresolved.
The letter that the orchestra member read said, “Dear audience, in the hundred-year life of this orchestra of ours and yours, there was everything that a century can bear. Certainly, the most valuable thing in the past hundred years has been the audience of the Belgrade Philharmonic, because of which this orchestra continues and because of which it has lived through such beautiful years. Every Friday, in your presence, the musicians of the Belgrade Philharmonic write new pages of history, with the aim of leaving a cultural legacy for generations to come for the next hundred years. But will we succeed in that?!”
The letter added, “Just as we share our artistic achievements with you, we feel an obligation and responsibility to share with you what is taking us further and further away from the secure future of this orchestra every day. Even after more than two years since the death of Ivan Tasovac, the Belgrade Philharmonic is in VD status, celebrating its centenary with the lowest salaries of orchestral musicians in the region, with a shamefully small budget year after year, without a director, without advertising, without a renewed concert uniform already ten years, and without firm convictions that our new hall will be built.”
“By spreading the name of our city and country around the world, we are increasingly confronted with the fact that in our city and in our country we are so highly educated and so low valued. That we play so well and a lot, and that we are paid so little and badly. That the dream of a new Philharmonic Hall of our metropolis is fading more and more, while the audience in Skopje, Podgorica, Tirana is enjoying the auditoriums that befit capital cities. At the end of October last year, we warned the Board of Directors of the Belgrade Philharmonic about all of the above with a warning strike.”
“We regret that in our country and in our city we represent an emblem that may or may not exist. What hardly anyone knows is that the education of a professional musician lasts an average of sixteen years and is one of the most expensive at the University because it is individual. That the competition at the auditions of the Belgrade Philharmonic is fierce and that top musicians fail to get a job several times, because someone even better always appears. That this job requires daily training and practice, regardless of how many years you have been doing it. That each of the members of the Belgrade Philharmonic can, with more or less training, perform many other jobs, but that no one who has not gone through the thorny path of very specific artistic development can become a Philharmonic player. But regardless of us, those who decide about us, ask: ‘What makes you special?'”
The letter concluded, “Being a member of the Philharmonic is equal to being a representative, and the Philharmonic is a cultural representation that repeatedly and repeatedly serves its country with pride and honor. Existentially, our lives on these salaries are extremely modest. Artistically, our lives are very rich. We Philharmonicians live for applause, but unfortunately we don’t live from applause. That is why we will demand that the state raise the salaries of the musicians of the Belgrade Philharmonic, to raise the budget necessary to achieve our further goals and to build a new building that will make the name of the Belgrade Philharmonic and the names of its musicians a more alive and present institution in the next hundred years. Investing in culture and art is the only definitely correct investment for the ages, because the fruit of such investments is a healthy society that stands on strong pillars of humanity. Everything else is the temptation of the existential, which apart from art, nothing has ever won. Dear audience, we want to thank you for listening to us, seeing us and recognizing our value in a city and state that seem to have forgotten about us and everything we represent in this society for a hundred full years. Finally, if you want to support us, we invite you to write to the Ministry of Culture with a few words what the Belgrade Philharmonic means to you and to appeal in your own way that our requests be heard and respected.”
In response to the letter, the director of the Philharmonic, Darko Krstić said that “the resolution of the demands presented in the statement is already in the process of implementation or their implementation will be initiated very soon.” The Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra is in the middle of its 100th anniversary season.
The title of Netflix’s new documentary “The Greatest Night in Pop,” which chronicles the recording of “We Are the World,” is a little mystifying. Pop music needs a big audience, but what happened inside A&M Studios in Los Angeles, in the vampire hours between 10 p.m. on Jan. 28, 1985, and 8 a.m. the next day, was seen by only 60 to 70 people in attendance, from Michael Jackson to a small film crew. The song that resulted in this frantic, logistically improbable session is stirring but callow, with a gospel-style chord progression that gives false weight to the platitudinous lyrics.
Prince, who declined repeated entreaties to join the ensemble, sat it out because he thought the song was “horrible,” according to the guitarist Wendy Melvoin. It sold over 20 million copies, with some fans reportedly buying multiples less out of enthusiasm for the music, it seems, than a desire to donate money toward feeding Ethiopians, who were in the midst of a famine that reportedly killed as many as 700,000 people. The song won four Grammys, including song of the year, but almost 40 years later, it has all but vanished from view.
But now, “We Are the World” and the private machinations that went into writing and recording it are up for reconsideration, thanks to the documentary, which was viewed 11.9 million times in its first week of release last month, topping Netflix’s list of English-language films. “The Greatest Night in Pop” earns its swaggering title in two ways. Until someone invents a time machine, it’s the greatest way to see what the mid-1980s were about, thanks to a parade of stylistic and technological hallmarks, and even anachronisms: big hair, cassette tapes, primary colors, satin baseball jackets, leather pants, leotards, fur coats, perms, walkie talkies, even a Rolodex. (Cassettes, unlike perms, have made a comeback.)
It’s also a wonderful illustration of the old maxim that show business is about relationships. The “We Are the World” session brought together most of the singers who made 1984 “pop music’s greatest year,” as manyhave called it, and benefited from an unrepeatable set of variables. The chain of action that preceded that night was, the film shows, all about calling friends, calling in favors and cannily casting the song with a broad demographic appeal. Here’s a look at how a few accomplished musicians and one relentless manager organized a gala event in only four weeks.
‘Cathedrals in sound”: it’s a cliche, but it’s still the best description of Bruckner’s symphonies, colossal works by a composer hewing away at huge slabs of music in order to glorify his God. Bruckner never finished the Ninth, but on his deathbed he suggested that his Te Deum might make a fitting choral finale, Beethoven-style. That’s how Nathalie Stutzmann chose to present the work, in the second of her two concerts with the LSO celebrating the bicentenary of the composer’s birth.
It was a flying visit for the French contralto-turned-conductor, and a hardworking one given that their other programme, three days earlier, had included Bruckner’s equally massive Symphony No 7. But then Stutzmann is not a conductor who lacks stamina, physical or musical. She has been acclaimed recently for her Bruckner and Wagner, claiming a place for herself in repertoire that has previously had some of the more forbidding male gatekeepers. Much of her interpretation of the Ninth was relatively light on its feet, and the hour-plus of Bruckner’s three orchestral movements sped by, with an almost lilting momentum threading through the many succeeding episodes of the first movement.
Nathalie Stutzmann conducts the LSO in the Barbican. Photograph: /Mark Allan
Passages of eloquently expressive playing alternated with ones that felt monumental and even monolithic – if this was a musical edifice, we were being directed to admire not only the details beautifully carved on to the surface but also the sheer heft of the building blocks. You could hear this in the second movement, where dry-sounding plucked strings above an expressionless but ever-increasing drone in the woodwind formed an unsettling lead-in to the pounding main theme, only to be succeeded by silky, supple violins – this was a clash of the human and the mechanical.
Stutzmann led us from the glowing third movement into the Te Deum with barely a pause. In this context it’s hard to know whether to think of the piece as a devotional work or the culmination of a secular epic, but Stutzmann made it work either way. The quartet of soloists, led by Robin Tritschler’s powerfully projected tenor and Alexander Tsymbalyuk’s cavernous bass, struck a balance between churchiness and amplitude, and the London Symphony Chorus sang with fervent conviction.
Vultures 1 arrives, as it seems all Kanye West albums now must, late and mired and in yet more controversy, the latter now a smouldering heap of self-inflicted ill-feeling that left West without a record label, an estimated $1.5bn poorer after Adidas cut ties with him and, according to a now-deleted post on Instagram, unable to book a tour because venues have blacklisted him, all due to antisemitic comments.
Indeed, this time around, the controversy and the lateness appear to go hand in hand. Vultures’ supporting cast list underlines that there are still plenty of big names happy to be associated with him – from Playboi Carti and Travis Scott to producers Timbaland and James Blake – but at least part of the album’s failure to appear on any of the scheduled release dates seems to be linked to other artists’ refusal to give clearance for guest appearances and samples. If Nicki Minaj’s disinclination to have her feature track on the album was, she said, down to the fact that it was “three years old”, there was little doubt as to why Ozzy Osbourne wanted out. “[He’s] a disrespectful antisemite,” offered his manager/wife, Sharon. “He fucked with the wrong Jew this time … the motherfucker’s a pig.”
So, as per usual, the actual music is hard to hear over the accompanying clamour, but if you strain your ears you can make out an album that’s an improvement on 2021’s Donda. It’s still uneven in a way that occasionally makes you wonder what on earth Volumes 2 and 3 of Vultures are going to sound like: what price their contents if his big comeback finds room for stuff like the limp title track and Hoodrat, based on an initially pleasingly chaotic and relentless sample that’s allowed to ramble on well past the threshold of endurance? There are hopelessly weak verses from West – if you like feeble sex rhymes laden with unfunny puns, Vultures is very much the album for you – and the standard of his lyrics is thrown into stark relief by a exceptionally snappy guest verse from Indiana MC Freddie Gibbs on Back to Me: “Just turned a bird bitch to my ex like I was Elon,” he raps, with a distinct hint of “this is how it’s done”.
Ty Dolla $ign and Kanye West performing together. Photograph: Zac Schuss
But there are more in the way of good ideas here than on its bloated and unfocused predecessor, beginning with the presence of Ty Dolla $ign, who’s both a far better vocalist than West – Glastonbury-goers may recall West’s nerve-jangling attempt to sing Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody sans Auto-Tune – and a unifying presence on an album that leaps wildly around stylistically, from the distorted abstractions of Paperwork to the melodically rich and hook-laden Burn, a throwback to the style that made West famous in the first place.
The presence of a track that could theoretically slot into West’s debut album underlines a feeling that flickers intermittently throughout Vultures. Its musical highlights are frequently powered by the sense that what Kanye West currently wants more than anything is a big, undeniable hit of the kind he used to make with startling regularity: perhaps to counter the prevalent narrative that his talent has waned as his notoriety has exploded in hitherto unimaginable ways, and perhaps out of the cynical but not-unfounded belief that few things cause the music industry to wipe the slate clean and let bygones be bygones quite like vast commercial success. You can hear it in Burn, the infernally catchy, Juvenile-sampling Do It and in Problematic on which Ty Dolla $ign’s vocal – lightly dusted with Auto-Tune rather than submerged in it – genuinely soars. And you can hear it in Carnival, which opens with a hook that’s evidently designed for huge crowds to bellow along to and proceeds in thrillingly epic style, assisted by a huge choral sample, and a snatch of the beat from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’s Hell of a Life, another throwback to an era when West’s genius far outshone his ability to provoke outrage.
Then again, there are moments during Vultures when you wonder whether West actually wants anyone to forget the attendant controversy. The kindest interpretation of his recent actions is that he’s a desperately unwell man who’s been manipulated by some of the worst people imaginable, white supremacist Nick Fuentes among them. Another interpretation is that he’s a kind of nuclear-powered edgelord, looking to provoke a reaction, which he certainly did, one that went far beyond online outrage and led to a spike in antisemitic attacks, among them synagogues and Jewish cemeteries vandalised with the phrase “Kanye was right”.
And if you cleave to the edgelord theory, there’s plenty of evidence to support it here. The cover design may have been changed so it no longer evokes the work of reprehensible black metal band Burzum, but there’s a lot of dialling back on West’s recent apology to the Jewish community, by way of awful jokes and boasts: he can’t be antisemitic because he “just fucked a Jewish bitch” offers the title track; jokingly comparing himself to the disgraced R Kelly and Bill Cosby on Carnival; rapping “antisemite / still the king” on King. It isn’t shocking so much as profoundly depressing: the actions of a man who thinks he can get away with it because he’s made an album so unequivocally brilliant, it negates all other criticism. For all Vultures’ scattered musical high points, he’s wrong on both counts.
NEW YORK (AP) — Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey, Cher, Lenny Kravitz, the late Sinéad O’Connor and heavy metal’s so-called Prince of Darkness are some the 2024 nominees for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, a wide musical net that also includes the pop-soul of Sade and Britpoppers Oasis.
Ozzy Osbourne, who led many parents in the 1980s to clutch their pearls with his devil imagery and sludgy music, gets the nod as a solo artist, having already gone into the hall with Black Sabbath. Nominations also were handed to hip-hop duo Eric B. & Rakim, soft rockers Foreigner, singer-guitarist Peter Frampton, alt-rockers Jane’s Addiction and Dave Matthews Band, and dance icons Kool & the Gang.
“Continuing in the true spirit of rock ‘n’ roll, these artists have created their own sounds that have impacted generations and influenced countless others that have followed in their footsteps,” said John Sykes, Chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation in a statement.
Ten of the 15 nominees are on the ballot for the first time, including Carey, Cher, Foreigner, Frampton, Kool & the Gang, Kravitz, Oasis, O’Connor, Osbourne and Sade. Sade, whose 1980s soft rock hits include “Smooth Operator” and “The Sweetest Taboo,” is having a moment, having last year been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Carey, with 19 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, Blige with eight multi-platinum albums and nine Grammy Awards, and Cher — the only artist to have a No. 1 song in each of the past six decades — would help boost the number of women in the hall.
Artists must have released their first commercial recording at least 25 years before they’re eligible for induction. The induction ceremony will take place in Cleveland this fall.
Nominees will be voted on by more than 1,000 artists, historians and music industry professionals. Fans can vote online or in person at the museum, with the top five artists picked by the public making up a “fans’ ballot” that will be tallied with the other professional ballots.
Last year, Missy Elliott, Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow, Chaka Khan, “Soul Train” creator Don Cornelius, Kate Bush and the late George Michael were some of the artists who got into the hall.
At HuffPost, we believe that everyone needs high-quality journalism, but we understand that not everyone can afford to pay for expensive news subscriptions. That is why we are committed to providing deeply reported, carefully fact-checked news that is freely accessible to everyone.
Whether you come to HuffPost for updates on the 2024 presidential race, hard-hitting investigations into critical issues facing our country today, or trending stories that make you laugh, we appreciate you. The truth is, news costs money to produce, and we are proud that we have never put our stories behind an expensive paywall.
Would you join us to help keep our stories free for all? Your contribution of as little as $2 will go a long way.
As Americans head to the polls in 2024, the very future of our country is at stake. At HuffPost, we believe that a free press is critical to having well-informed voters. That's why our journalism is free for everyone, even though other newsrooms retreat behind expensive paywalls.
We cannot do this without your help. Support our newsroom by contributing as little as $2 to keep our news free for all.
As Americans head to the polls in 2024, the very future of our country is at stake. At HuffPost, we believe that a free press is critical to creating well-informed voters. That's why our journalism is free for everyone, even though other newsrooms retreat behind expensive paywalls.
Our journalists will continue to cover the twists and turns during this historic presidential election. With your help, we'll bring you hard-hitting investigations, well-researched analysis and timely takes you can't find elsewhere. Reporting in this current political climate is a responsibility we do not take lightly, and we thank you for your support.
Contribute as little as $2 to keep our news free for all.
Taylor mania has landed in Tokyo. But the enthusiasm of some of the Swifties arriving with her has clashed with local sensibilities.
Thousands of visitors from across Asia and beyond have flooded into Japan’s capital as Taylor Swift performs at the Tokyo Dome for four nights this week. The problem, as some domestic concertgoers see it, is that these foreign fans don’t share the rather restrained Japanese approach to taking in a show.
In a post on the platform X, a Japanese holder of a V.I.P. ticket wrote that even paying 130,000 yen — about $870 — and being seated in the third row didn’t guarantee a clear view, given that so many foreign fans had stood up.
“It’s too sad,” the post said. “It’s crazy that, if you follow the rules, you won’t be able to watch it.”
While Japanese are praised abroad for their pristine behavior at soccer matches and other sporting events, their exacting standards at home can make them hostile to visitors. Another post on X, accompanied by a short video of audience members hoisting up their cellphones to capture the scene onstage, complained that “there were many foreigners who couldn’t respect manners.”
The grumbling is in some ways a microcosm of Japan’s mixed reception to the international tourists who have helped restore the country’s economy, the world’s third largest, after the pandemic. More than 25 million people visited Japan last year, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization, nearly 80 percent of the number who visited in 2019.
As visitor numbers rebounded last year, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida fretted that “there are concerns that in some areas and at certain times of the day, excessive crowding and poor etiquette may impact the lives of local residents and reduce traveler satisfaction.”
Etiquette was on the mind of Chiharu Nakayoshi, 31, an occupational therapist, when she attended Ms. Swift’s concert on Wednesday. She said her enjoyment of the performance had been undermined by the behavior of non-Japanese concertgoers who left their assigned seats and blocked her view in the V.I.P. section.
“I bought the most expensive ticket, because I thought it would be a rare opportunity to see Taylor at her most glorious,” Ms. Nakayoshi wrote in a direct message on X. “But when the day came, it turned out to be lawless.”
Other Japanese fans pointed out on social media that domestic spectators, too, could behave badly, citing an outdoor summer music festival in Osaka where fans groped the breasts of a singer onstage.
One post characterized “discrimination against foreigners” coming to Tokyo to see Ms. Swift as “really disgusting.”
For many of the international visitors, a large number from China, Southeast Asia or the United States, the concerts were a bonding experience.
Thousands of Chinese Swifties joined WeChat message groups to swap tips on scoring tickets, form car pools to travel outside Tokyo and offer shopping suggestions, said Yuqing Mai, 23, a university administrator in Canada who stopped in Tokyo to see the first concert on Wednesday on her way to see family in China for the Lunar New Year.
Ms. Mai said she knew of at least eight WeChat groups with 500 members each that were dedicated to Swifties traveling to Japan. She said many fans had expressed interest in traveling to other parts of Japan while in the country for the concerts.
“A lot of fans are either arriving in Japan early or staying for a few days longer afterwards,” she wrote in an email.
With such concertgoers booking hotels and side trips to Kyoto or other destinations, Ms. Swift’s four-night Tokyo gigs could prove lucrative for the domestic tourism industry.
Mariel Milner, 32, a communications strategy director at an advertising agency in New York, and Lindsay Milner Katz, 31, a sales director at a New York media company, said they had not initially planned this year to visit their sister, Dianne Milner, 34, who works in Tokyo as a lawyer for Hewlett-Packard.
But when Dianne managed to secure lottery slots to buy three V.I.P. tickets to one of the Tokyo dates for about $350 apiece — with the favorable exchange rate, much cheaper than such seats might have cost in the United States — the sisters decided to book flights to Japan.
“We said, ‘What’s a flight? And we can stay with our sister,’” Mariel Milner said on a call from a hotel room in Kyoto, where the women had traveled with their husbands for a 24-hour visit before returning to Tokyo for the final concert on Saturday. “So we rationalized it, because it’s once in a lifetime.”
Similarly, Monika Gami, who moved last summer to Tokyo from New Jersey with her family, had two of her husband’s cousins in town to see Ms. Swift. But “I am not sure I would consider it visiting us,” Ms. Gami said. “Their trip here was planned before we even got here.”
The excitement of having Ms. Swift in Tokyo prompted reports of what the star herself was doing with her time in Japan.
Kiyoshi Kawasaki, who owns Turret Coffee in the Tsukiji neighborhood of Tokyo, said that Ms. Swift had visited his shop on Monday, but that he had not been sure of who it was until he saw photos of Ms. Swift in an Instagram post by the Japanese edition of Vogue.
Mr. Kawasaki said he could have sworn that Ms. Swift had stood in line for coffee with Selena Gomez, a fellow pop star; Brittany Mahomes, whose husband, Patrick Mahomes, is a Kansas City Chiefs quarterback and teammate of Ms. Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce; and one more woman.
Representatives for Ms. Gomez said that she was not in Tokyo. And a spokesman for the Chiefs, who will face the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl this weekend, did not reply to an email asking whether Ms. Mahomes was in Japan.
On Friday night, one Swiftie, Jazmine Sydney Tanay, 23, a loyal fan for 16 years who had flown in that morning from the Philippines, had her wish come true in more ways than one.
Before the concert, as she munched on a rice ball from a food stand inside the dome, she said she was hoping that Ms. Swift would tell the audience directly about her next album.
As the show opened, Ms. Swift did just that. Working the crowd, she said that the fans in Tokyo were the most stylish. Gazing out at the dome, she told them that she had said to herself the word “kawaii,” Japanese for cute.
As Ms. Swift launched into “Cruel Summer” from her 2019 album, “Lover,” the audience leaped to their feet, causing the stands to tremble. No word yet on whether the activity registered on any seismometers.
I first encountered John Tavener when I was a young chorister at King’s College, Cambridge. We were singing his choral work, The Lamb, and I vividly remember his presence, which struck me even then as a young nine or 10-year-old. He was extremely tall with long hair, dressed in a white suit, and had a sort of mystical aura around him.
Some years later I was performing his works, Popule Meus, for solo cello and orchestra, and Svyati, for cello and choir, again in King’s College Chapel. Director of music Stephen Cleobury told me that Tavener was going to be at the concert, and so I decided to reach out to him to ask about the pieces before we performed them in his presence. I telephoned him – Maryanna, his wife, answered. I remember hearing her take the phone to John, ascending many steps into what sounded like an attic, but in my mind, and knowing John’s heavenly music, I wondered if we had actually arrived above the clouds.
His spirituality was the guiding force for most of his music… Tavener in 2004 at his home in Dorset. Photograph: Tom Pilston/The Independent/REX
He gave me valuable insights into the works, but today I don’t remember much specifically about the conversation other than being slightly starstruck. Knowing that he was in the chapel as we performed the concert made the whole occasion extra special. Tavener came to the front of the audience at the end to take a bow and opened his outstretched arms as if to anoint us all, and there was this almighty crescendo of applause. At the busy reception afterwards, John was sitting quietly in the corner by himself with his walking stick, and so I took the opportunity to go and speak with him. We talked away about various things, I most remember him telling me, “I think I’m just starting to come around to Beethoven.”
Some years later, I performed The Protecting Veil a number of times including at a festival celebrating Tavener’s music in Cardiff with BBC National Orchestra of Wales and then at a memorial concert, again at King’s Chapel, Cambridge. I feel lucky to have met John in his last years. He died aged 69 in November 2013.
The Protecting Veil, for many his masterpiece, was premiered at the 1989 BBC Proms by my friend and mentor Steven Isserlis with Oliver Knussen conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra. It reflects Tavener’s deeply felt religious faith – he was a member of the Greek Orthodox church, his spirituality was the guiding force for most of his compositions.
In the early tenth century at a time of grave danger for the Greeks from a Saracen invasion, Andrew, the holy fool, during an All-Night-Vigil, saw the Mother of God surrounded by a host of saints. Heartened by this vision, the Greeks withstood the Saracen assault and drove away the Saracen army. The Feast of the Protecting Veil is kept by the Orthodox Church in celebration of this event.
Various Feasts were in my mind as I composed; for instance the second section is related to [the Virgin Mary’s] birth, the third to the Annunciation… the fifth to her lament at the foot of the cross, the sixth to the Resurrection, and the first and last sections to her cosmic beauty and power over a shattered world.
The Protecting Veil … is an attempt to make a lyrical ikon in sound, rather than in wood, and using the music of the cellist to paint rather than a brush. The music is highly stylised, geometrically formed, and meditative in character.”
I grew up listening to Isserlis’s iconic recording, and when I came to learn the work I decided to go to a Greek Orthodox church for inspiration. St Sophia’s Cathedral in west London was close to where I was living at the time, and when I asked if I could practice Tavener’s music there during the week, they responded with a big smile saying that he himself used to visit the church frequently. It was as if it was meant to be, and wonderful to observe the services in the space with the smells and bells and chants, too.
During the memorial concert – broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 – I remember my attention being caught by a little boy in the front row who would occasionally lie down on the floor when the music was calm, and sort of roll around when it became more active, and then at other times I wondered if he had even fallen asleep on the heated stone floor in the chapel! I knew it was Tavener’s young son, Orlando, and it almost felt as if I could sense John’s presence during the performance through this small child.
I’m really happy to be returning to this masterpiece during what would have been John’s 80th year and performing it with the wonderful Britten Sinfonia. Memories have come flooding back. The piece really does take you into another dimension. Perhaps it is grimly fitting to be performing it with war raging in various parts of the world. The work’s inspiration is drawn from a story of a besieged nation and a vision of the Mother of God spreading out her veil as a protective shelter. The cello starts by itself in the highest register of the instrument, marked “Transcendent, with awesome majesty” while the strings gradually emerge in the radiant key of F major, full of light and hope. Over six sections we travel on a spiritual journey from the Birth to the Dormition (the falling asleep) of the Mother of God. We hear a chant between each section that cycles through each degree of the F major scale until we finally return to the opening theme 40 minutes or so later. We are left with a depiction of tears of the Mother of God by falling glissandos in the strings.
It takes stamina to perform this enchanted work… cellist Guy Johnston Photograph: Ikon Arts Management
“I have tried to capture some of the almost cosmic power of the Mother of God,” wrote Tavener. “The cello represents the Mother of God and never stops singing throughout. One can think of the strings as a gigantic extension of her unending song … the first and last sections relate to her cosmic beauty and power over a shattered world.”
The Protecting Veil took the world by storm and remains one of a tiny handful of classical pieces nominated for a Mercury prize, in the award’s inaugural year, 1992. (Primal Scream’s Screamadelica won.)
It takes quite some stamina to perform this enchanted work. The cellist is playing in the stratosphere for much of the time. There are some unusual techniques along the way, including symbols denoting microtones that characterise the breaks in the voice of byzantine chant, plus challenging double stops and other virtuosic passages that sound almost improvised. Tavener really casts a spell with the evocative sound world that is unlike any other work I can think of. At one point, the cello is left lamenting alone for almost five minutes in the darkest register of the instrument. There are some sublime moments, with interjections of warlike eruptions from the double basses and string orchestra along the way, but somehow by the end, one is transported to a distant mystical realm.
Rappers Snoop Dogg and Master P are suing US supermarket chain Walmart and food manufacturer Post Consumer Brands, claiming that the two companies conspired to sabotage the success of the pair’s new breakfast cereal enterprise.
Snoop Cereal launched last summer, with Master P hailing parent company Broadus Foods as the first Black-owned cereal company in the US: “This has been going on for over 100 years, that we’ve been consumers and never owners, so we’re changing that game.” The rappers partnered with Post to produce the cereal itself.
As reported in Billboard, they now allege “diabolical actions” and “underhanded dealings” as Post attempted to “choke Broadus Foods out of the market” after the rappers refused to sell their company to Post “in totality”.
In the lawsuit filed on Tuesday, it is also alleged that “Post essentially worked with Walmart to ensure that none of the boxes of Snoop Cereal would ever appear on the store shelves”. The lawsuit claims that the cereal was falsely shown as being out of stock at the supermarket, with boxes kept hidden in stockrooms, “coded to not be put out on the store shelves”.
Post Consumer Brands has not yet responded to the suit, while Walmart said in a statement that the company “values our relationships with our suppliers, and we have a strong history of supporting entrepreneurs. Many factors affect the sales of any given product, including consumer demand, seasonality and price to name a few. We will respond as appropriate with the court once we are served with the complaint”.
Without specifically naming the lawsuit, Master P posted a video comment after the filing, saying: “We are building a family brand. Dr Martin Luther King showed us how to dream, fought racism and guess what? We’re doing the same in corporate America for equal rights for everybody.”
Snoop Cereal previously launched in 2022 as Snoop Loopz, but was blocked by Kellogg’s who claimed the name infringed on their Froot Loops brand. In the same year, Broadus Foods also launched a separate breakfast brand, Momma Snoop, with products including maple syrup and oatmeal.
In a statement on its website, Broadus Foods says the company is “committed to inspire economic empowerment by adding diversity into the grocery stores industry and creating opportunities for minority-owned food products and brands”.
