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| Heartbeat Opera announces its 10th Anniversary 2023-24 Season | |
| Posted by: Official_Press_Release 02:24 pm EDT 10/02/23 | |
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| The acclaimed indie opera company HEARTBEAT OPERA announces its 2023-24 10th Anniversary Season Featuring an extravagantly designed opera drag spectacle, a world premiere opera, and a radically re-orchestrated opera adaptation "It’s one of the few indie companies that never sacrifices elaborate production design and it’s the company least afraid to tackle political issues." — Observer ___________________ Heartbeat Opera's signature Drag Opera Extravaganza returns this fall: THE GOLDEN COCK An original riff on Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Golden Cockerel featuring Queers versus Kremlin Created by Nico Krell and Jacob Ashworth Directed by Nico Krell Arrangements by Daniel Schlosberg Music Directed by Jacob Ashworth & Daniel Schlosberg Costumes by David Quinn Cast features Ariana Wehr, Sara Couden, Daniel Moody, Elliott Paige, John Taylor Ward Three Performances at Roulette Intermedium November 9 at 7:30pm November 10 at 7pm and 9:30pm Tickets on sale now ___________________ Heartbeat Opera's annual SPRING FESTIVAL returns with a world premiere and a reimagined classic Music Director Daniel Schlosberg debuts his first opera THE EXTINCTIONIST and brings his "ingenious" (WSJ) reorchestrations to EUGENE ONEGIN THE EXTINCTIONIST A new 75 minute one-act opera, sung in English, that wrestles with climate catastrophe and with one woman’s unorthodox choice. Music by Daniel Schlosberg Libretto by Amanda Quaid Originally Conceived with Louisa Proske Directed by Shadi Ghaheri Music Directed by Daniel Schlosberg Cast TBA Baruch Performing Arts Center, Manhattan April 3, 5, 7, 10, 12, 14 EUGENE ONEGIN This 100 minute adaptation, sung in Russian, injects Tchaikovsky's own biography into each of the characters. Co-Adapted by Dustin Wills and Jacob Ashworth Directed by Dustin Wills Music Directed by Jacob Ashworth Newly arranged by Daniel Schlosberg Cast TBA Baruch Performing Arts Center, Manhattan April 2, 4, 6, 7, 11, 13 SPRING FEST TICKETS AVAILABLE THIS WINTER heartbeatopera.org Top L-R: Jacob Ashworth (Russ Rowland), Daniel Schlosberg (Russ Rowland), Amanda Quaid (Sara Grace) Bottom L-R: Shadi Ghaheri (Julian Elijah Martinez), Nico Krell (Larry Levanti), Dustin Wills (Dustin Wills) From Heartbeat Opera's Artistic Director Jacob Ashworth: "This year we’re showing the breadth of what Heartbeat Opera can do, and how far we can stretch our zeal for adaptations. Our Drag Extravaganza is a wild and willful version of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Golden Cockerel , a fairy tale about a doddering tsar that we transform into a biting satire, pitting dictators against drag queens. Our Spring Festival features the long-awaited premiere of Heartbeat Opera’s first commission, The Extinctionist, a piece that feels intrinsically “Heartbeat,” even though it is a brand new work: a taut story, focusing on societal issues affecting real people, with a small cast and band, and an obsession with using the medium of opera to unleash the emotional avalanche inside the drama. Our major adaptation of a classic work for this season is a bucket list piece, Eugene Onegin, with a dream-come-true collaboration. I’m thrilled to be co-adapting Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece with Dustin Wills (NYT Critic’s Pick Wet Brain, Lucille Lortel Award-winning Wolf Play) as we continue to be a place for brilliant theatrical directors to shake up the opera world." New York's Heartbeat Opera—the daring young company that "has already contributed more to opera’s vitality than most major American companies” (The New York Times), and whose unconventional orchestrations and stagings of classic operas have been called "a radical endeavor" by Alex Ross in The New Yorker—announces its Tenth Anniversary Season in 2023-24. The season opens at Roulette on November 9 and 10 (three performances) with the return of Heartbeat Opera's annual Drag Opera Extravaganza. Entitled THE GOLDEN COCK, this new, original creation takes the framework of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's opera, The Golden Cockerel, and incorporates music by Rachmaninoff, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Tchaikovsky, Irving Berlin, and more, with arrangements by Heartbeat Opera's brilliant Music Director Daniel Schlosberg. Later this spring, Heartbeat Opera returns to Baruch Performing Arts Center with its signature Spring Festival from April 2-14, 2024. The company will premiere a radically reimagined classic, EUGENE ONEGIN—and a boundary-pushing new commissioned opera, THE EXTINCTIONIST, which is Daniel Schlosberg's first-ever full-length opera. Schlosberg has long been the "secret sauce" of Heartbeat Opera's productions, and The Extinctionist offers a moment to celebrate his incredible work with Heartbeat Opera over the last decade. THE EXTINCTIONIST follows a young couple trying to have a baby. Ice caps are melting. Forests are burning. In the face of environmental collapse, one woman wonders if the best way to protect a future child is not to have one at all. It all goes according to plan until she discovers she has little choice in the matter. In this dark comedy, a woman’s body becomes a battleground of political anguish, conflicting desire, and existential dread. Inside the ornamented drawing rooms of a buttoned-up society, three young outsiders flame into mismatched passion and combust, hurtling toward irreparable choices. Tchaikovsky’s long-suppressed queerness floods into every character of this propulsive drama, as they smash against one of the most romantic operatic scores in history. Heartbeat Opera's radical adaptation of EUGENE ONEGIN maps the composer’s own complex biography onto his characters and asks—how can we ever break free of the life we are born into? THE GOLDEN COCK Thurs, Nov 9 @ 7:30p — The Gala Fri, Nov 10 @ 7p — The Early Show Fri, Nov 10 @ 9:30p — The Late Show Created by Nico Krell & Jacob Ashworth Directed by Nico Krell Arrangements by Daniel Schlosberg Music Directed by Jacob Ashworth & Daniel Schlosberg Costumes by David Quinn Featuring: Ariana Wehr - soprano Sara Couden - contralto Daniel Moody - countertenor Elliott Paige - tenor John Taylor Ward - bass The disco balls have stopped spinning at the only gay club in St. Petersburg, and there’s time for one last bedtime story. It’s Queers versus Kremlin tonight in an eye-popping, ear-thrilling battle replete with ambrosial arias, rude roosters, and a dacha full of divas. Don your dress, down your vodka, and dream dirty at Heartbeat Opera’s frisky riff on Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Golden Cockerel. Heartbeat's drag extravaganzas always reimagine classic opera, but The Golden Cock is the closest they have come to making an adaptation of a full opera into a drag show. Rimsky-Korsakov’s original is a fantastical tale about a hapless but war-mongering tsar who sets off towards the West with his army at the slightest crow of “danger!” from his golden cockerel. He becomes enchanted by a foreign queen who ends up seducing him, returning with him, and taking over his empire. Heartbeat Opera's version turns the fantastical into the fabulous, with costumes by one of New York’s most celebrated designers, David Quinn — known for his work with artists such as Bridget Everett and Darrel Thorne. With a cast of returning Heartbeat favorites, The Golden Cock marks Heartbeat's most ambitious—and operatic—drag extravaganza yet. Watch WNET ALL ARTS 6-minute documentary on Heartbeat Opera's Annual Drag Extravaganza Heartbeat's Spring Festival April 2-14, 2024 Baruch Performing Arts Center THE EXTINCTIONIST April 3, 5, 7, 10, 12, 14 A new 75 minute one-act opera, sung in English. Music by Daniel Schlosberg Libretto by Amanda Quaid Originally Conceived with Louisa Proske Directed by Shadi Ghaheri Music Directed by Daniel Schlosberg Cast TBA The Extinctionist, the first opera by Heartbeat Opera's Music Director Daniel Schlosberg, follows the story of a woman making a difficult decision—to bear a child or not to, in the face of climate change—contending with the choices that are available to her. With a libretto by Amanda Quaid and music by Daniel Schlosberg, The Extinctionist feels even more prescient in the face of the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Shadi Ghaheri returns as director after her extremely successful run as director of Heartbeat Opera's TOSCA at the 2023 Spring Festival, which The Wall Street Journal characterized as "clever" and Opera News described as "vital" and "seamlessly tailored." The Exctinctionist was originally workshopped in 2021 at PS21, and received a feature in The New York Times. The Exctinctionist marks James Stevenson and Lunafest Prize-winning writer, actor, and teacher Amanda Quaid's first opera libretto, and is an outstanding addition to her prolific writing career. Her work as a playwright, which she began in 2018, has been lauded on off-Broadway stages, and her screenplays have received widespread recognition at Oscar-qualifying festivals across the country. EUGENE ONEGIN April 2, 4, 6, 7, 11, 13 A new 100 minute adaptation, sung in Russian. Co-Adapted by Dustin Wills and Jacob Ashworth Directed by Dustin Wills Music Directed by Jacob Ashworth Newly arranged by Daniel Schlosberg Cast TBA Heartbeat Opera's adaptation of Tchaikovsky's classic opera, Eugene Onegin, looks at romance and friendship through the lens of Tchaikovsky’s suppressed queerness. The desires of all three main characters—Onegin, Tatyana, and Lensky—are warped and transmuted by the pressure of their society, so that they resist definition even as they demand expression. A series of only recently uncensored letters give a fuller, clearer insight into the oppression Tchaikovsky faced for his sexuality. Excerpt of a letter from Tchaikovsky to his younger brother September 28, 1876 (Moscow): "Can you understand how it kills me to think that people who love me can sometimes feel ashamed of me! It’s happened a hundred times. What I want is to get married or openly have an affair with a woman in order the shut the mouths of all those scum. Since my letters to you I’ve already given way three times to my proclivities. Only the other day I made a trip to the village where Bulatov lives, and fell madly in love with his coachman. So you’re quite right when you say that people are totally incapable of not yielding to their weaknesses." This reimagining of Eugene Onegin comes at a time in which many Russian artists are being forced to flee the country or to live under terrifying risk. In Heartbeat’s hands, Tchaikovsky’s psychological masterpiece becomes an acute expression of the impossibility of liberation and acceptance that remains true even in our most progressive societies today. This production marks the major New York opera debut for director Dustin Wills, who recently won the Lucille Lortel award for directing for Wolf Play. He has directed many plays, including Frontières Sans Frontiéres , which was named in The New York Times' Top Ten Theatrical Productions of 2017 and was a Time Out New York Critics Pick, and Plano, which was called "rare theater magic" by Austin's Sightlines Magazine. Heartbeat Opera heartbeatopera.org "A categorically imaginative company." — THE NEW YORKER Heartbeat Opera was founded in 2014 to create incisive adaptations and revelatory arrangements of classics, reimagining them for the here and now. Since then Heartbeat Opera “has already contributed more to opera’s vitality than most major American companies” (New York Times), and has established itself as a highly-respected, innovative force in the opera world. A year ago, after nine years as Co-Music Director, Jacob Ashworth became Artistic Director, with Daniel Schlosberg as Music Director, and Tim Hausmann as Executive Director. After a triumphant first season under new leadership, Heartbeat Opera's legacy of radical adaptations of classic opera continues, and the company “hasn’t skipped a beat” (New York Times). Amidst distressing news of theaters contracting and shuttering across the country, we hope to help keep Opera thriving by bringing in new audiences, reimagining the classics, and telling the stories only opera can tell. In its first nine seasons, Heartbeat Opera has presented fourteen fully-realized productions, often featuring new chamber arrangements and English translations. Heartbeat Opera adaptations, which can be seen as world premieres of classics, speak to the moment, here and now. Fidelio featured a primarily-Black cast and more than 100 incarcerated singers from six prison choirs. Carmen was set on the U.S./Mexico border and featured accordion, electric guitar, and saxophone. In Tosca, a mostly Middle-Eastern cast braved the authoritarian censorship of an unnamed religious regime to tell their story. Heartbeat Opera has shared its work at the Kennedy Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Broad Stage, The Mondavi Center, Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, and Chamber Music North West. It staged the first ever opera performance on The High Line and has mounted its immensely popular, interdisciplinary Halloween Drag Extravaganza each year at iconic venues such as National Sawdust and Roulette. During the pandemic, Heartbeat took Lady M, its adaptation of Verdi’s Macbeth, online and sold out 32 Virtual Soirées, reaching 740 households across 5 continents; it also created Breathing Free, a visual album, which was nominated for the 2021 Drama League Award for Outstanding Digital Concert Production. Heartbeat Opera has been hailed across the national and international press, including in four features in The New York Times, in stories on CNN and the BBC, and in an ALL ARTS/WNET documentary: “Bracing—icy vodka shots of opera instead of ladles of cream sauce” (The New York Times), “elegant and boisterous” (New Yorker), “fascinating and gorgeous” (Observer), “ingenious” (Wall Street Journal), “gripping and entertaining” (Opernwelt), “a flatout triumph” (Opera News). Heartbeat Opera has collaborated with organizations such as Atlas DIY and A BroaderWay to bring opera education to young people in NYC, and during its west coast tour of FIDELIO was represented by the world class artist agency Opus 3 Artists. After taking the leap to welcome new leadership last year, as our founders moved onto our Board, we are proud to report that Heartbeat Opera “hasn’t skipped a beat,” and continues to push the boundaries, “demonstrating the strengths that make it so vital to New York’s opera scene” (The New York Times). |
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