
Scrappy opera company Heartbeat thrives by reimagining the classics
Dan Schlosberg remembers the day 11 years ago when his upstart opera company put on its first performance — in a yoga studio before an audience of 30 people.
'We did Kurt Weill's 'The Seven Deadly Sins' accompanied by an upright piano that we got for free on Craigslist and a violin,' recalled Schlosberg, the company's music director and one of its founders.
They named their company Heartbeat Opera, 'from the idea that singers would be feet away from you,' Schlosberg said. 'And so you would be experiencing their voices at arm's length and that would make a resonance in your heart.'
Today, in an era when many opera companies are struggling financially, Heartbeat appears to be thriving, with an annual budget that just passed $1 million.
But true to its initial vision, the company still performs in small venues, most with a seating capacity of about 200.
No small opera here
'Very few small companies take up the ambition to do the fullness of opera on a small scale,' said Jacob Ashworth, another founding member and Heartbeat's artistic director. 'We don't do small opera. We do big opera in a small space.'
And despite its success with critics and audiences — performances regularly sell out — the company has deliberately maintained a modest schedule.
There's typically an opera-themed drag show around Halloween and then two operas staged in New York City performance spaces in the winter and spring. Each work is condensed to 90-100 intermission-less minutes with new orchestrations that require just a few musicians.
Marc Scorca, president and CEO of Opera America, thinks Heartbeat is smart not to expand too quickly — a mistake that has caused some small companies to collapse.
'Growth itself shouldn't be a goal. Excellence should be a goal,' he said. 'I always prefer companies to plan their trajectory as slow as possible so they don't overstretch and overstep.'
Unlike some small companies, Heartbeat doesn't focus on new work or on bringing to light neglected old rarities. Instead, its website promises 'incisive adaptations and revelatory arrangements of classics, reimagining them for the here and now.'
It's that reimagining that attracted Sara Holdren, a director, writer and teacher who first worked with the company on Bizet's 'Carmen' in 2017.
'Their approaches to the storytelling feel extremely of our world and about our world,' she said, 'without falling across that line into a sort of trite topicality where you say, 'Oh yes, I understand a relevant-with-a-capital-R political point is being made here'.'
For Beethoven's 'Fidelio,' Heartbeat went to prisons and recorded the voices of incarcerated people, who appeared on video singing the Prisoners Chorus. For Tchaikovsky's 'Eugene Onegin,' the two main male characters became lovers, reflecting the composer's own sexuality.
Salome in a pink skirt and sneakers
And for Richard Strauss' 'Salome' this season, the teenage title character was dressed in a frilly pink skirt and sneakers; John the Baptist was imprisoned on stage in a cage with transparent sides instead of in an underground cistern; and during the Dance of the Seven Veils, it was a lascivious Herod who stripped off his clothes, not Salome.
Heartbeat's casting for 'Salome' reflected the premium it places on theatrical values in addition to vocal ability.
Baritone Nathaniel Sullivan, who portrayed John the Baptist, recalled that 'a big part of the audition was just straight acting. And in the rehearsals, there was a real focus on the storytelling.
'I haven't experienced that in a lot of other opera companies to that extent,' he said.
Soprano Summer Hassan, who was cast as Salome, admits she was nervous at first 'because I had never done a role like this where I am the title character.
'I was really doubting myself, thinking how do I make this girl look so young?' she said. 'And they said, your physicality will do that on your own. Make her look confident and you will make her look like a confident child. They gave me the tools to figure out it was within me.'
Perhaps the most striking aspect of this 'Salome' was the re-orchestration by Schlosberg. Instead of more than 100 players as called for in the original, he took a cue from the opening notes on a clarinet and scored the piece for eight clarinetists (who also played other instruments) and two percussionists.
Heartbeat's final local offering of the season will be Gounod's 'Faust,' to run at the Baruch Performing Arts Center from May 13-25.
The devil made her do it
'I had mentioned to Jacob that I really love devil stories,' said Holdren, who is directing the production. 'And I was fascinated with the idea of taking something so big and so weighed down with history and assumptions and seeing how much we could crack it open and blow the dust off.'
She sees Mephistopheles less as a 'mustache-twirling villain' and more as 'a figure of hunger and loneliness slipping into the vacuums that human beings create when they are so desperate or disgusted with life that there's an opening for him.'
Her production will be set in contemporary times, sung in French but with new English-language dialogue, and it will make heavy use of shadow puppetry. It's the first Heartbeat offering for which Schlosberg has not done the re-orchestration.
That task fell to Francisco Ladrón de Guevara, a Mexican violinist and composer who has scored the opera for seven musicians, most of whom play two instruments, including Ashworth, who will play violin and mandolin and also conduct.
Taking Heartbeat Opera on the road
Schlosberg will be back doing the arranging for a rare Heartbeat foray outside the city this summer. The company has been invited to stage a revised version of Samuel Barber's 'Vanessa' at the Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts.
'I'm really excited by what they've been doing, particularly in reimagining the classics for contemporary times," said Raphael Picciarelli, co-managing director of the festival.
For Heartbeat's debut in Williamstown, the festival is setting up a new performance space that should make the company feel right at home. It's in an abandoned grocery store, and there will be seats for just over 200 people.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Sun
23 minutes ago
- The Sun
Sofia Vergara, 52, goes topless as she tans in thong bikini by the pool
SOFIA Vergara sent her fans into meltdown with her latest topless selfie, as she topped up her tan by the pool. The America's Got Talent judge, 52, stripped off and bared her peachy bottom in a sizzling new snap. 4 4 4 Sofia looked incredible in her selfie, which saw her lounge by an idyllic pool. The stunning Modern Family star was completely nude apart from a pair of skimpy bikini bottoms. Showing off her natural beauty, Sofia wore minimal make-up and had her trademark long locks flowing freely. Taking to Instagram to share the sizzling snap, the sexy actress wrote: "Llego el verano!" - which translates to "Summer has arrived!" Fans went into meltdown at the sexy picture, with one saying: "Too hot to handle!" another added. "Wow hot body," penned a third. Sofia even had a message from her supermodel pal Heide Klum, who wrote: "Come over ….I am doing the same thing. Sunbathing." SINGLE LADY Sofia is embracing the single life following her split from ex-husband Joe Manganiello. Sofia Vergara, 52, leaves fans 'drooling' in skintight red dress as she pays tribute to Taylor Swift on magazine cover The former Hollywood golden couple shocked fans when they split in 2023. The high-profile pair confirmed their separation after seven years of marriage, with them revealing at the time: "We have made the difficult decision to divorce. "As two people that love and care for one another very much, we politely ask for respect of our privacy at this time as we navigate this new phase of our lives." Sofia and Joe, who is known for starring in Magic Mike, got married in a Palm Beach ceremony in November 2015. Their whirlwind wedding came after less than a year of dating. Shortly after their divorce came to light, reports swirled that their marriage was "impacted by Joe's sobriety" and the fact that Sofia was and is not actively sober. Speaking to MailOnline, the source revealed: "Of course, the fact that Sofia is not sober had an impact on their marriage." Sofia shared an update on her love life during an October 2024 interview with Us Weekly. Asked whether or not she thought New York City was the best place to date, she replied:: "Totally. Actually, I was talking about it because now I'm single. Kind of single."


The Guardian
33 minutes ago
- The Guardian
The worst sports movie in history? I asked Sepp Blatter about Fifa's United Passions
There are movies that bomb at the box office. And then there is the Fifa biopic United Passions, starring Tim Roth, Sam Neill and Gérard Depardieu, which was hit with the cinematic equivalent of a thermonuclear strike when it opened in the US 10 years ago this week. You might remember the fallout; the fact it took only $918 (£678) in its opening weekend, making it the lowest grossing film in US history at the time, and the stories detailing how two people bought tickets to see it in Philadelphia, and only one in Phoenix, before it was pulled by distributors. Then there were the reviews. 'As cinema it is excrement,' Jordan Hoffman wrote in the Guardian. 'As proof of corporate insanity it is a valuable case study. United Passions is a disgrace.' Admittedly, there was never going to be a good time to launch 109 minutes of soft-sheen history and propaganda about Jules Rimet, João Havelange and Sepp Blatter. But when 14 Fifa members were indicted on corruption charges just days before the $26m (£19m) film's US release, the film became a byword for hubris and excess. Only in Russia, where it made £140,000 at the box office, did it muster any sort of audience. Although what they made of Neill's attempt at Havelenge's accent, which veered wildly between Brazil, New Zealand and Ireland, is anyone's guess. The 10-year anniversary seemed like the perfect time for me to grit my teeth and watch United Passions for the first time. I also hoped that those involved might have got over their collective embarrassment and would be prepared to talk about it. Was it really the worst sports movie in history? Worse than Rocky V? Or the Love Guru, which starred Mike Myers as a bearded Indian whose task, in the words of the Observer's then critic Philip French, 'is to counsel a black ice-hockey star whose wife has run off with a French Canadian goalkeeper known as 'Le Coq' for the prodigious size of his membrum virile'. Having watched it, I can say that United Passions really is right up there. The script feels like it was written by a 2015 version of ChatGPT that has been programmed to hate the English, who come across as universally pompous. The dodgy stuff in Fifa's history is danced around, or ignored. And some of it is so cringey it makes you gasp. At one point, for instance, Blatter expresses his fears over the 1978 World Cup in Argentina because the military government is murdering its opponents. 'Who cares,' Havelange replies. 'During the World Cup they only dream of one thing, that ball. Because football brings consolation to all tragedies and sorrows!' That is the same Havelange who took millions in bribes and kickbacks from Fifa's deals with the marketing company ISL. In fact, United Passions is so comically awful the Internet Movie Database gives it 2.1 out of 10, a ranking so dismal it would qualify for its worst 100 films of all time list if it had the 10,000 votes needed to qualify. When the film came out Roth, who plays Blatter, admitted: 'This is a role that will have my father turning in his grave,' before confessing he did it only to put his kids through college. You can fault his performance, but not his honesty. A decade on, however, few others want to revisit it. The publicist sent me a lovely email but didn't remember many specifics. An ex-Fifa employee jokingly referred to the film as a 'blockbuster' but had only vague memories of its genesis. Fifa, meanwhile, didn't want to comment. The only exception? Blatter himself. When I spoke to his official spokesperson, Thomas Renggli, he asked me to fire over a few questions. A day later, he came back with the replies. 'Obviously the movie was not a success,' Blatter, who turns 90 next year, told me. 'A movie about Fifa is always controversial, so for me it was not a surprise that the opinions were so different in Russia and in the US.' Blatter also insisted that the concept of United Passions had not come from him and, contrary to internet rumour, he had not tinkered with the script to make himself the hero. 'The idea came up after there was a small movie called Goal,' he said. 'And in this environment, the Fifa management brought up the idea of producing a big movie. It was definitely not only me behind it. And concerning my part in the production, I was only an adviser. I was not involved in the script.' Which is just as well, because it is bad. Really, really bad. A few minutes into the film, for instance, Rimet tries to get Football Association bigwigs to join Fifa while speaking to them at half-time during a game. 'Our boys are two goals down gentlemen!' Rimet is told. 'There are things much more important than life and death. There is football. And at half-time things are deadly serious!' Blatter also insisted he was OK with how the film turned out, but Renggli told me that there was befuddlement when it was shown to Fifa employees before its premiere at the Cannes film festival. 'We were all sitting there in this big auditorium and everybody was thinking, 'what do they want to tell us with this film?' To me it did not make sense at all.' There are some, of course, who think Fifa will be making another expensive mistake in the US this weekend when it launches its 32-team Club World Cup. The early signs are not positive, with tickets for the opening game between Lionel Messi's Inter Miami and Al Ahly going for $55 – 16% of the original asking price of $349. There are also concerns with player welfare, given the increase in the number of games and Blatter, who was recently cleared of fraud by a Swiss court, is not a fan of the tournament, or next year's expanded 48-team World Cup. 'Havelange once told me that I made a monster when I created this wedding between TV and football,' he told me. 'But now it's all too much. There are too many games. And too many teams in the tournaments. Sooner or later, we will have 128 teams, like in a tennis grand slam.' And whatever you think of Blatter, or indeed United Passions, it is hard to disagree too much with those sentiments.


Sky News
39 minutes ago
- Sky News
Trade war: US-China talks in London aim for widespread truce
Top US and Chinese officials are meeting in London on Monday in the hope of making further progress in easing the trade war between the world's two largest economies. The eyes of global financial market investors are firmly on the outcome of the discussions, given the damage already inflicted by the spat and wider US -led trade war. The US delegation is led by Treasury secretary Scott Bessent while China 's vice premier He Lifeng - a respected negotiator at the top of the Chinese government - will represent his country. The venue has not been disclosed. It is hoped the talks will build on the preliminary agreement struck in Geneva that removed the effective trade embargo between the two nations. That deal amounted to a 90-day reduction in effective tariff rates above 100% to allow for further talks. A phone conversation between Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping last week set the scene for Monday's negotiations. Mr Trump later said that Xi had agreed to resume shipments to the US of rare earths minerals and magnets. They had been suspended by Beijing in response to Mr Trump's tariffs and were seen as an effective tool in getting the US to talk due to the havoc it inflicted on supply chains central to many US manufacturers - the very sector the US president is trying to bolster through his "America first" agenda. It emerged on Monday morning that Boeing had resumed shipments of planes to Chinese customers. 2:02 Mr Trump has described the status of the negotiations as "very far advanced" but China, in its own remarks, has been more critical of the US position. A Chinese government readout of the Trump-Xi conversation said the Chinese premier had told his US counterpart to back down from inflicting further hurt to the global economy. The trade war to date has damaged growth widely, with official US figures showing a sharp slowdown in the first quarter of the year - before the worst of the tariff regime had even been announced. Data out of China on Monday showed deflationary pressures had deepened as factory gate prices - an important signal on future price growth - slid further into negative territory during May as demand for goods continued to drag. Customs data had already showed that China's exports to the US - its biggest single market - slumped by 34.5% year-on-year during May in value terms. That was up from a 21% drop the previous month. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told Fox News: "We want China and the United States to continue moving forward with the agreement that was struck in Geneva. "The administration has been monitoring China's compliance with the deal, and we hope that this will move forward to have more comprehensive trade talks." A UK government spokesperson said of hosting the negotiations: "We are a nation that champions free trade and have always been clear that a trade war is in nobody's interests, so we welcome these talks."