ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) — The Joe Burrow boost to Cincinnati’s playoff aspirations lasted but a week.
In his second game after missing 10 weeks with a toe injury, Burrow threw interceptions on consecutive pass attempts in the fourth quarter, and the Bengals squandered a 10-point lead in a 39-34 loss to the Buffalo Bills on Sunday that greatly diminished their postseason outlook.
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Buffalo Bills running back James Cook III (4) runs with the ball past Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Barrett Carter (49) during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, in Orchard Park, N.Y. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Buffalo Bills cornerback Christian Benford (47) runs for a touchdown after intercepting a pass by Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow (9) during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, in Orchard Park, N.Y. Also seen are Buffalo Bills defensive tackle Jordan Phillips (52), Cincinnati Bengals running back Chase Brown (30) and Buffalo Bills defensive end Greg Rousseau (50). (AP Photo/Jeffrey T. Barnes)
Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow pauses as he speaks during a news conference after an NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, in Orchard Park, N.Y. (AP Photo/Jeffrey T. Barnes)
Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow (9) is sacked by Buffalo Bills cornerback Christian Benford (47) during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, in Orchard Park, N.Y. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Having revitalized their chances when Burrow returned to lead Cincinnati in a 32-14 victory at Baltimore on Thanksgiving, the Bengals (4-9) are now all but eliminated from contention for a wild-card playoff spot. As for the AFC North race, they trail the Pittsburgh Steelers by three games with four games left.
“I’m just happy to be out there,” a melancholy Burrow said after losing for the first time in nine starts dating last season.
“We want to win games and be in the playoffs and do everything that we say we are capable of doing,” Burrow said. “But when I came back, I knew it was going to be an uphill battle. We were 3-8 at that point. That’s certainly not a playoff-caliber position to be in.”
As well as Burrow played through 3 1/2 quarters in staking the Bengals to a 28-18 lead, the wheels fell off late.
After Josh Allen ran for a 40-yard touchdown to get Buffalo within three, Burrow threw interceptions on consecutive snaps from scrimmage. The first was returned 63 yards for a touchdown by Christian Benford, who leaped to pick off Burrow's lob attempt to Ja’Marr Chase.
“Could’ve thrown it higher, I guess,” Burrow said.
Next up, Burrow had his pass tipped by defensive tackle Jordan Phillips and A.J. Epenesa picked it off, leading to another Bills touchdown.
Burrow's interceptions were his first this season, and he finished 26 of 35 passing for 284 yards and four touchdowns, including two to Tee Higgins.
“We were in a great spot and I thought (Benford) just made an outstanding play,” Bengals coach Zac Taylor said. “It’s very rare that you see a guy have that awareness the way we were attacking him there and make a play.”
Perhaps it was too much to ask of Burrow to salvage a season in which Cincinnati went 1-8 without him.
The Bengals' defense allowed 416 yards, including 248 in the second half. Cincinnati dropped to 3-3 this season when scoring 30 points.
“We knew it was an explosive offense,” Taylor said. “They are capable of scoring 40 points. That’s what they do to people. They got us there in the fourth quarter.”
Higgins returned after missing a game with a concussion, and he was twice evaluated for concussions on Sunday.
“I’m a solider,” Higgins said, noting he passed both concussion tests. “Soldiers take hits. It happens. It’s football."
The Bengals are guaranteed to finish with their fewest wins since going 4-11-1 in 2020, Burrow's rookie year.
“Obviously we are not where we want to be as a team or organization, 4-9 is not good. But we’ve got four games to go and show high-level execution, high-level playmaking,” Burrow said. “I’m going to relish the opportunity to go out and play with these guys and continue to try and put on a show for everybody watching.”
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Buffalo Bills running back James Cook III (4) runs with the ball past Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Barrett Carter (49) during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, in Orchard Park, N.Y. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Buffalo Bills cornerback Christian Benford (47) runs for a touchdown after intercepting a pass by Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow (9) during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, in Orchard Park, N.Y. Also seen are Buffalo Bills defensive tackle Jordan Phillips (52), Cincinnati Bengals running back Chase Brown (30) and Buffalo Bills defensive end Greg Rousseau (50). (AP Photo/Jeffrey T. Barnes)
Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow pauses as he speaks during a news conference after an NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, in Orchard Park, N.Y. (AP Photo/Jeffrey T. Barnes)
Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow (9) is sacked by Buffalo Bills cornerback Christian Benford (47) during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, in Orchard Park, N.Y. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
MILAN (AP) — The gala crowd at Milan's Teatro alla Scala cheered the season premiere of Dmitry Shostakovich's "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk '' with a 12-minute standing ovation Sunday, as the storied theater synonymous with the Italian repertoire opened with a Russian melodrama for the second time since Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The crowd of luminaries fully embraced stage director Vasily Barkhatov's bold telling of merchant wife Katerina Izmajilova's fall into a murderous love triangle against the backdrop of Stalin's Soviet Union, right up to the jarring final scene with a Soviet truck barreling into a wedding party, and two characters perishing in burst of flames.
U.S. soprano Sara Jakubiak was showered with carnations and cheers for her tireless portrayal of Katarina, the title character, over the 2 hour and 40 minute opera, and the audience cheered its appreciation for conductor Riccardo Chailly, making his last Dec. 7 gala premiere appearance as music director.
“No one ever expects this,'' Jakubiak said backstage of the enthusiastic reception. ”I am just so happy.''
While the 2022 gala season premier of “Boris Godunov” drew protests from the Ukraininan community for highlighting Russian culture in the wake of the invasion, the premiere of "Lady Macbeth'' inspired a flash mob demonstrating for peace.
Shostakovich's 1934 opera highlights the condition of women in Stalin’s Soviet Union, and was blacklisted just days after the communist leader saw a performance in 1936, the threshold year of his campaign of political repression known as the Great Purge.
A dozen activists from a liberal Italian party held up Ukrainian and European flags in a quiet demonstration removed from the La Scala hubub that aimed “to draw attention to the defense of liberty and European democracy, threatened today by (President Vladimir) Putin’s Russia, and to support the Ukrainian people.’’
Another, larger, demonstration of several dozen people in front of city hall called for freedom for the Palestinians and an end to colonialism, but was kept far from arriving dignitaries by a police cordon. Demonstrations against war and other forms of inequality have long countered the glitz of the gala season premiere that draws leading figures from culture, business and politics dressed in their finest frocks.
Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli was joined by the senator for life Liliana Segre, a Holocaust survivor, and Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala in the royal box. Italian pop stars Mahmoud and Achille Lauro were also among those in attendance.
Chailly began working with Barkhatov on the title about two years ago, following the success “Boris Godunov,'' which was attended by Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, both of whom separated Russia’s politicians from its culture.
But outside the Godunov premiere, Ukrainians protested against highlighting Russian culture during a war rooted in the denial of a unique Ukrainian culture.
Chailly called the staging of Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth" at La Scala for just the fourth time “a must.’’
“It is an opera that has long suffered, and needs to make up for lost time,’’ Chailly told a news conference last month.
La Scala’s new general manager, Fortunato Ortombina, defended the choices made by his predecessor to stage both Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth” and Modest Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov " at the theater whose history is tied to the Italian repertoire.
‘‘Music is fundamentally superior to any ideological conflict,’’ Ortombina said on the sidelines of the news conference. “Shostakovich, and Russian music more broadly, have an authority over the Russian people that exceeds Putin's own.’’
Jakubiak, 47, made her La Scala debut in the title role of Katerina, whose struggle against existential repression leads her to commit murder, landing her in a Siberian prison where she self-immolated to kill herself and her treacherous second husband's new lover — deviating from the original story's drowning. It’s the second time Jakubiak has sung the role, after performances in Barcelona last year, and she said Shostakovich's Katerina is full of challenges.
“That I’m a murderess, that I’m singing 47 high B flats in one night, you know, all these things,’’ Jakubiak said while sitting in the makeup chair ahead of the Dec. 4 preview performance to an audience of young people. “You go, ‘Oh my gosh, how will I do this?’ But you manage, with the right kind of work, the right team of people. Yes, we’re just going to go for the ride.”
Speaking to journalists recently, Chailly joked that he was “squeezing” Jakubiak like an orange. Jakubiak said she found common ground with the conductor known for his studious approach to the original score and composer’s intent.
“Whenever I prepare a role, it’s always the text and the music and the text and the rhythms,'' she said. “First, I do this process with, you know, a cup of coffee at my piano and then we add the other layers and then the notes. So I guess we’re actually somewhat similar in that regard.''
Jakubiak, best known for Strauss and Wagner, has a major debut coming in July when she sings her first Isolde in concert with Anthony Pappano and the London Symphony.
Barkhatov, who at 42 has a flourishing international career, said “Lady Macbeth” is a “very brave and exciting" choice for La Scala's season opening.
Barkhatov's stage direction sets the opera in a cosmopolitan Russian city in the 1950s, the end of Stalin’s regime, rather than a 19th-century rural village as written for the 1930s premier.
For Barkhatov, Stalin’s regime defines the background of the story and the mentality of the characters for a story he sees as a personal tragedy and not a political tale. Most of the action unfolds inside a dark restaurant appointed in period Art Deco detail, with a rotating balustrade creating a kitchen, a basement and an office where interrogations take place — all grim and dingy.
Despite the tragic arc, Barkhatov described the story as “a weird … breakthrough to happiness and freedom.’’
“Sadly, the statistics show that a lot of people die on their way to happiness and freedom,’’ he added.
Stage director Vasily Barkhatov sits during an interview with The Associated Press prior to the dressed rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
A wig receives final touches ahead of the dress rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
A wig receives final touches ahead of the dress rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
External view of Teatro all Scala ahead of the dress rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
Soprano Sara Jakubiak has her makeup done ahead of the dress rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
The stage is prepared ahead of the dressed rehearsal of the Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District, by Dmitri Shostakovich, at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
