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    Review: ‘The Comet/Poppea’ Merges Opera’s Past and Present

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    A Monteverdi masterpiece and a new work by George Lewis are played simultaneously in an American Modern Opera Company production at Lincoln Center.When you enter the David H. Koch Theater for “The Comet/Poppea,” you are directed not into the auditorium but through some passageways and onto the stage. It’s a rare perspective to be facing a hall full of empty seats, with the delightful, rebellious undercurrent of being where you’re not supposed to be.Being where you’re not supposed to be is one of the few threads tying together the two operas that are played more or less simultaneously over the following 90 minutes. Monteverdi’s “L’Incoronazione di Poppea” (1643) charts the improbable climb of Nero’s mistress to the throne of the Roman Empire. George Lewis’s “The Comet” (2024), set about a century ago, imagines a Black man who finds himself in a once segregated, now abandoned space after an apocalyptic event.The idea of intermingling these very different works came from the director Yuval Sharon, who is always cooking up half-mad ideas like this, and the American Modern Opera Company, or AMOC, a collective exploring its capacious vision of the art form over the next month during a residency at Lincoln Center.The audience for “The Comet/Poppea,” which opened on Wednesday and runs through Saturday, sits in two sections facing each other across the stage. Between them is a large circular platform that has been divided in two. One side is the realistic, amber-lit restaurant of “The Comet”; the other, where “Poppea” plays, is a heavenly vision of a pristinely white Roman bath, the walls encrusted with white plaster flowers.This turntable is constantly rotating, in an effort to convey a sense of “a visual and aural spiral,” as Sharon writes in a program note. But while “The Comet/Poppea” tries to conjure a cyclone, whipping together past and present, Black and white, high class and low, naturalism and stylization, it ends up feeling more like a trudge.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Climate Activists Interrupt New York City Ballet Performance

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      Protesters interrupted an all-Balanchine program on the company’s spring season opening night, which coincided this year with Earth Day.A small group of climate change activists interrupted a New York City Ballet performance at the David H. Koch Theater in Lincoln Center on Tuesday, the opening night of the company’s spring season.The protest occurred shortly before 9 p.m., as dancers and orchestra musicians performed Balanchine’s “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux,” the third ballet on an all-Balanchine program for the opening night, which coincided this year with Earth Day.A woman began yelling from the balcony. Then, she shouted, “We’re in a climate emergency,” and unfurled a banner from a balcony.“Our country has become a fascist regime, and we are enjoying this beauty,” said the protester, according to videos of the incident.The dancers and musicians continued to perform through the demonstration for about five minutes. Some members of the audience booed the protesters and demanded their removal.The curtain came down, an announcer said the show would be paused because of the disruption and security officers removed several protesters from the auditorium. About five minutes later, “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux” restarted from the beginning and the performance did not face further interruptions, City Ballet said in a statement.Activists had also gathered outside the theater before the performance, holding signs reading “Koch killing the planet” and “No billionaire ballet on Earth Day,” according to photos posted online.The theater is named after David H. Koch, a billionaire who donated vast sums to support the arts but was for some a polarizing figure because of his campaign to counter the science of climate change.The climate advocacy group Extinction Rebellion, which has organized similar protests, said in a social media post Tuesday night that the demonstration was meant to highlight the Koch family’s support for conservative causes and efforts to block policies to fight climate change.The protest follows similar episodes at other high-profile performances. Last year, three climate change protesters disrupted a Broadway performance of “An Enemy of the People,” starring Jeremy Strong. And in 2023, climate activists interrupted a performance of Wagner’s “Tannhäuser” at the Metropolitan Opera. A protester shouted “The spring is tainted,” and dropped a banner that read “No Opera on a Dead Planet.” More

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      10 Years After Eric Garner’s Death, an Opera Honors His Legacy

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      “The Ritual of Breath Is the Rite to Resist,” part of Lincoln Center’s summer festival, aims to shine light on police violence in the United States.In the middle of “The Ritual of Breath Is the Rite to Resist,” an opera about the police killing of Eric Garner, a singer portraying his daughter reflects on his famous final words: “I can’t breathe.”“I can’t let go,” she sings. “I hear his words again and again. A scream in a dream that escapes as a gasp.”A decade after Garner’s death, “Ritual of Breath,” which comes to Lincoln Center’s summer festival on Friday, aims to shine light on Garner’s legacy and the broader problem of police violence in the United States.The opera, composed by Jonathan Berger to a libretto by the poet Vievee Francis, focuses on Garner’s daughter, Erica, as she grapples with the pain, guilt and anger she feels over her father’s death. But “Ritual of Breath” also spotlights the stories of other Black people killed by the police, and issues a spirited call for empathy and change from performers including a 90-member choir spread across the stage and in the audience.“It’s not enough to say that someone died on the street — to reduce them to a chalk outline,” Francis said. “If we don’t know who that was, if we don’t see them as human, no difference will be made. Art allows us to feel that life.”The creators of “Ritual of Breath,” which premiered in 2022, hope that the opera will bring fresh attention to social injustice in American society. Niegel Smith, the show’s director, quoted a line from the opera’s final scene in explaining its message: “When a brother’s breath fails, we pick it up. When a sister’s breath fails, we pick it up.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jazz at Lincoln Center’s New Season Includes Tribute to Bayard Rustin

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      The civil rights activist’s life and legacy will be honored in a 2024-25 lineup that will also include spotlights on jazz history, and a rising star to warm up November.Jazz at Lincoln Center announced its 2024-25 concert season on Tuesday, which will include performances that celebrate the 20th anniversary of the center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall, a tribute to the civil rights activist Bayard Rustin and concerts by Grammy Award-winning artists.The season will run from Sept. 19, 2024, to June 14, 2025, and will begin with Hot Jazz and Swing, in which the music director Loren Schoenberg will guide the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra through revitalized arrangements of 1920s and ’30s tunes.On Oct. 18-19, Bryan Carter, a drummer and composer, will lead the Jazz at Pride Orchestra in honoring the life and legacy of Rustin.Other nods to the past will focus on the history of jazz. Led by Wynton Marsalis, the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, the center’s orchestra will perform 10 concerts that will each pay homage to a decade of jazz history, from the 1920s to the present.Performances in February will honor the early years of jazz and its many inspirations by incorporating cuts from blues, gospel, country and bluegrass, as well as from recordings by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and others. On Nov. 8-9, a pair of concerts will focus on the jazz pioneers Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Tadd Dameron and others.From Jan. 16-18, Cool School & Hard Bop concerts will explore midcentury jazz, featuring works from Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Max Roach and others. And May 29-31, the saxophonist Ted Nash will lead the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in performances of new arrangements of music associated with the 1970s.The season will also include more modern performances, including concerts that will feature music from Joanne Brackeen, Charlie Haden, Terence Blanchard and others.Several concerts will also spotlight specific musicians. On Nov. 15-16, Joshua Redman will return to the Rose Theater in a collaboration with Gabrielle Cavassa, a rising star from New Orleans. Later in the season, on Feb. 14-15, Dianne Reeves will perform in a Valentine’s Day celebration filled with songs about romance and heartbreak. The pianist and composer Monty Alexander will celebrate his 80th birthday by performing on Jan. 24-25, while Anat Cohen and her brothers will celebrate her 50th birthday with performances of early swing, post-bop and Brazilian choro on March 14-15.The final performances of the season, June 13-14, will feature music directed by Marsalis and will showcase works by the veteran band members Chris Crenshaw, Vincent Gardner and others. More