![]() ![]() ![]() Heartbeat Opera questions inherited dramatic and musical traditions. Since 2016, Heartbeat has been presenting a pair of masterpieces in its annual Spring Festival, one each directed by Proske and Heard: Lucia di Lammermoor and Dido & Aeneas (2016) Carmen and Butterfly (2017) and Don Giovanni and Fidelio (2018). Through a series of original adaptations of classic works, Heartbeat has earned its reputation as the most vibrant opera company to emerge in New York City in recent years. All of them share a background as child performers who grew up singing and playing around the world, from Berlin’s Komische Oper to New York City Opera, their paths later converging as students at Yale University’s Schools of Drama and Music. This conviction is what drives Heartbeat’s desire to rejuvenate opera and to transform its recognized masterpieces from venerated relics into freshly challenging encounters.įounded by Co-Artistic Directors Louisa Proske and Ethan Heard, Heartbeat is led by Proske, Heard, and Co-Music directors Jacob Ashworth and Daniel Schlosberg. Opera is, at heart, a red-hot physical experience for performers and audiences alike - an artistic medium that articulates and confronts human passions with powerful immediacy. Visceral, radical, essential: Heartbeat Opera pinpoints the vital pulse that has animated this art form since its origins, seeking to reimagine its fusion of music and drama in boldly revelatory and liberating collaborations. ![]() After taking the leap to welcome new leadership last year, as our founders moved onto our Board, we are proud to report that Heartbeat “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” (New York Times). Heartbeat 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. Heartbeat 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” (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). 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. 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. Heartbeat 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. In Tosca, a mostly Middle-Eastern cast braved the authoritarian censorship of an unnamed religious regime to tell their story. Carmen was set on the U.S./Mexico border and featured accordion, electric guitar, and saxophone. Fidelio featured a primarily-Black cast and more than 100 incarcerated singers from six prison choirs. Heartbeat adaptations, which can be seen as world premieres of classics, speak to the moment, here and now. In its first nine seasons, Heartbeat has presented fourteen fully-realized productions, often featuring new chamber arrangements and English translations. Grounded in the belief that excellent opera-making should build community and radiate beauty, we work toward an equitable and inclusive future for our art form, centered in love. Our new, interdisciplinary collaborations expand the boundaries of what opera can be. Heartbeat Opera creates incisive adaptations and revelatory arrangements of classics, reimagining them for the here and now. ![]()
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