Latest news with #HeartbeatOpera
Wall Street Journal
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘Faust' Review: Heartbeat Opera Deals With Gounod's Devil
New York Heartbeat Opera's radical adaptations of classic titles can soar or fall flat, but one constant has always been music director Dan Schlosberg, whose ingenious maverick arrangements—such as February's 'Salome' for eight clarinetists and two percussionists—never fail to stimulate. Until now.
New York Times
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Review: A Game of Light and Shadow in Gounod's ‘Faust'
The director Sara Holdren has made it pretty clear that she's a fan of Mikhail Bulgakov. In the biography that accompanies her new production of Gounod's 'Faust' for Heartbeat Opera, Holdren ends with a bit of Cyrillic script that translates to 'Manuscripts don't burn,' the most famous line from Bulgakov's novel 'The Master and Margarita.' A passage from that book, a Soviet spin on the Faust story, also appears in Holdren's note about her staging. During her work she thought often, she wrote, about one of the devil's lines: 'What would your good do if evil did not exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared? After all, shadows are cast by things and people.' This idea, that light and shadow, and all they represent, are intertwined and essential to life itself, guides Holdren's take on 'Faust,' which opened on Thursday at the Baruch Performing Arts Center, in a new adaptation by her and Jacob Ashworth, with a chamber arrangement by Francisco Ladrón de Guevara. Before 'Faust' was a sprawling grand opera in the 1860s, sung through across five acts and including a ballet, it was a humbler opéra comique, with spoken dialogue between its flights of musical expression. Holdren blends the two versions, trimming the length and adapting the spoken lines to sound as if they were written today. The goal, as always with Heartbeat Opera, is to breathe urgency into a classic. And 'Faust,' which isn't performed often, was once the classic. Perhaps the most popular work of its day, it opened the Metropolitan Opera in 1883. (Martin Scorsese depicted one of those Gilded Age performances of 'Faust' in his film adaptation of 'The Age of Innocence.') Now, however, it's harder to come by. The Met hasn't even presented it in over a decade. Holdren, who was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize this year, is also an excellent theater critic for New York Magazine; often, I'm convinced she's the finest in town. You can sense a real, exciting theatrical instinct in her production of 'Faust,' particularly in the inventive ways she plays with light and shadow (designed by Yichen Zhou). But she doesn't stop there. Light and shadow, in her production, lead naturally to a vocabulary of cinematic Expressionism (in Zhou and Forest Entsminger's scenic design) and puppetry (by Nick Lehane and nimbly performed by Rowan Magee and Emma Wiseman). Puppetry, though, gives way to a magic and artifice, an analogue of Mephistophelean manipulation and control that, winking and occasionally slapstick, undercut Holdren's poetry elsewhere. Either of those, light and shadow, magic and artifice, could make for an entire production. Here, they pile onto each other, saturated and impatient, with the added weight of other elements like queerness, feminism and, for just a moment, silent film. Individually, they all feel true to the opera; together, they make a mess of it. Mostly, the result is still the story of Gounod's opera, except the ending: Marguerite, instead of ascending to heaven, is liberated from Faust and Mephistopheles, free to have her baby and live on, idyllically, with Marthe and Siebel (here a female character rather than a trouser role). It's a fitting victory for this production, in which the women are also the strongest performers. As Marthe, the mezzo-soprano Eliza Bonet had a characterful presence and a warmly robust sound. Her fellow mezzo AddieRose Brown was an agile, earnest Siebel, while the soprano Rachel Kobernick's Marguerite was equally captivating whether intimate, like singing 'Il était un Roi de Thulé' to herself, or ecstatic, towering over Faust and Mephistopheles in the opera's climax. Ashworth, one of Heartbeat's artistic directors, led a shape-shifting ensemble of eight from his violin (among other instruments). They heroically muscled through two straight hours of an arrangement, with quotes from Gounod's 'Ave Maria' and Mendelssohn's incidental music for 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' that transformed the opera's orchestra into the kind of enterprising, colorful chamber group you'd hear in the pit for a play or a silent film. At times the players were hammy partners to Mephistopheles, sung by the bass-baritone John Taylor Ward with hearty friendliness and a jovial flamboyance. In smaller parts, Brandon Bell was a bumbling Wagner, and Alex DeSocio's Valentin had gorgeous brawn with the occasional hard edge. As Faust, the tenor Orson Van Gay II's tone was elegantly smooth but chewy through his imprecise French. Enunciation was less of a problem in the English-language spoken scenes, but those moments, too, were a challenge for the cast. Few opera singers are persuasive actors, and when 'Faust' was an opéra comique, dialogue was more declamatory and stylized compared with the post-Stanislavsky, realistic delivery that audiences have come to expect. Holdren's 'Faust' had an intriguing dramaturgical tension between casual dialogue and grandly melodic arias, but that requires a level of acting that these singers were never able to reach. And, in a production already teeming with aspiration and ideas, it may have been asking too much.
South China Morning Post
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Why upstart US opera company's stripped-down productions have found an audience
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. Advertisement 'We did Kurt Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins accompanied by an upright piano that we got for free on Craigslist and a violin,' said Schlosberg, Heartbeat Opera's musical director and one of its founders. Its name came '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, when many opera companies are struggling financially, Heartbeat appears to be thriving, with an annual budget that just passed US$1 million. But true to its initial vision, the company still performs in small venues, most with a seating capacity of about 200. Advertisement '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.'
08-05-2025
- Business
Scrappy opera company Heartbeat thrives by reimagining the classics
NEW YORK -- 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. '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. 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. '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. 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.
The Independent
08-05-2025
- Business
- The Independent
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.
