Heartbeat Opera Announces Its 2020-2021 Season

HEARTBEAT OPERA-the fast-growing indie opera company whose visceral, re-imagined, re-orchestrated and stripped down stagings of classic operas have been called "a radical endeavor" by Alex Ross in The New Yorker-continues to take its programming online in light of COVID-19. As artists face increasing financial hardship, Heartbeat Opera takes pride in the fact that 85% of their fall budget is going toward employing more than 50 collaborators.

Its 2020-2021 season follows a summer of innovative quarantine content that garnered praise for its ingenuity and spirit: a sold-out run of 32 virtual Lady M soirées that Operawire declared "will be remembered as groundbreaking"; and Heartbeat's moving and glorious virtual choir rendition of Leonard Bernstein's Make Our Garden Grow, created in the earliest days of quarantine.

The season kicks off in September with THE SECRET SAUCE, an exuberant soirée-style retrospective of the company's first seven years, featuring adventurous archival footage from their vaults, tantalizing stories, and special guests. Then in November, they premiere BREATHING FREE, a theatrical song-cycle that connects Beethoven's Fidelio with the work of Black composers such as Harry T. Burleigh, Langston Hughes, and Anthony Davis. BREATHING FREE builds on Heartbeat's 2018 work with incarcerated singers and prison choirs, and continues their exploration of race and the American prison system. Looking ahead to Spring 2021, Heartbeat plans to present their first-ever commission, THE EXTINCTIONIST, a world premiere opera by Heartbeat Co-Music Director Daniel Schlosberg, librettist Amanda Quaid, and Heartbeat Co-Artistic Director Louisa Proske that wrestles with climate catastrophe and with one woman's unorthodox choice.

As always, at the helm are four graduates of the Yale School of Drama and Yale School of Music: Co-Artistic Directors Ethan Heard and Louisa Proske, and Co-Music Directors Jacob Ashworth and Daniel Schlosberg. They founded Heartbeat Opera in 2014 and have since grown their company from an indie "start up" into an internationally recognized player, consistently hailed as a leader in envisioning the future of opera.

The 2020-21 Season Show art by Andrew Boyle.

THE SECRET SAUCE

Seven years in Seven Soirées
A Heartbeat Retrospective
September 14-20, 2020 on Zoom
Tickets start at $30

SPECIAL GUESTS and SCHEDULE

Monday, September 14, 8PM: Wendy Lesser
(Award-winning Writer and Founding Editor of Threepenny Review)

Tuesday, September 15, 8PM: Gundula Kreuzer
(Yale Professor of Music, Verdi and Wagner scholar, Dent Medal winner)

Wednesday, September 16, 8PM: Jeanine Tesori
(Tony Award winning Composer of Fun Home and Blue)

Thursday, September 17, 2PM: Julia Bullock
(Internationally Acclaimed Classical Singer, Activist, Program Curator)

Friday, September 18, 2PM: Derrell Acon
(Bass-Baritone seen in Heartbeat's Fidelio and Der Freischütz, Scholar, Activist)

Saturday, September 19, 8PM: Liz Diamond
(Yale Repertory Theater Resident Director, Obie Award Winner)

Sunday, September 20, 3PM: Gundula Kreuzer

All shows at Eastern Time. Special Guests are subject to change.

The seven unique soirées of The Secret Sauce develop the format of Heartbeat Opera's hugely successful virtual Lady M soirées this summer, which stood out for the spirit of lively connection between artists and audience. A joyous retrospective, this new round will feature special guest moderators, videos from Heartbeat's archive, stories the creators have never told, and live musical performances previewing their upcoming season.

Whether one is new to Heartbeat or a die hard fan, this is a chance to sneak a peek behind the curtain and learn about their creative process. How does Dan cook up his orchestrations? Why do they boil a three hour opera down to 90 minutes? How do they confront racist clichés that are lodged inside operatic traditions?

Heartbeat Opera will dive into three videos per soirée-a different menu each night-and engage in an in-depth conversation about how Heartbeat creates. Soirées will also include a live performance sneak peek of THE EXTINCTIONIST.

BREATHING FREE

A theatrical-virtual song cycle
Performances Winter 2020

Featuring Beethoven's Fidelio
plus works by Harry T. Burleigh, Langston Hughes, Anthony Davis, and more
Directed by Ethan Heard
Co-Music Directed by Daniel Schlosberg & Jacob Ashworth
Featuring Derrell Acon (bass-baritone), Curtis Bannister (tenor), Kelly Griffin (soprano)

"O welche Lust, in freier Luft den Atem leicht zu heben!"
"O what joy, in the open air, freely to breathe again!"
- The Prisoners, Fidelio

In 2018, Heartbeat collaborated with 100 incarcerated singers in six prison choirs to create a contemporary American Fidelio told through the lens of Black Lives Matter-a production that left Alex Ross of The New Yorker "blindsided by its impact." In 2020-the year of George Floyd's murder, a pandemic which ravages our prison population, and the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth-Heartbeat curates a new song cycle, brought to life in vivid music videos, mingling excerpts from Fidelio with songs by Black composers and lyricists, which together manifest a dream of justice and equity. Robust educational partnerships with public high school groups throughout the fall are an added element of Breathing Free.

"This project has affected me more and more as time has passed. From the process of learning the music week to week and growing in confidence, misplaced or not, to recording the song live in our chapel, gradually the gravity of what I was doing settled in. Having been in prison for over 20 years, I have not had a place in the free world, and this has been an opportunity for me to share something truly positive with my friends and family. Thank you for allowing them to see me in another light ... I almost feel free."
- incarcerated singer from the East Hill Singers at Lansing Correctional Facility in Kansas

THE EXTINCTIONIST

Spring 2021

Music by Daniel Schlosberg
Libretto by Amanda Quaid, based on her play
Directed, Conceived, and Developed by Louisa Proske
Music Directed by Jacob Ashworth

Heartbeat is thrilled to commission its first new opera! The Extinctionist is being created as an online/in-person hybrid work, to premiere in Spring 2021. Audiences can expect sneak peeks of the opera this winter.

In brief:

A young couple is trying to have a baby. Ice caps are melting. Brooklyn will soon be underwater. Upcycling is the new recycling. The Woman wonders: what if the only way to protect her future daughter was to not have her? What if she could save the planet from unspeakable future destruction by sterilizing herself . . . by becoming the very first "Extinctionist"? In this dark comedy, a woman's body becomes the battlefield of our political anguish, conflicting desires, and individual responsibility.

Ethan Heard (Co-Artistic Director & Producer) and Louisa Proske (Co-Artistic Director) founded Heartbeat Opera in 2014, after they graduated from Yale School of Drama's directing program, to create radical adaptations of classic operas in intimate spaces for 21st century audiences. "One of the most agile and dynamic companies on New York's indie opera scene" (Opera News), Heartbeat has already established itself as a highly-respected, innovative force in the opera world.

In its first six seasons, Heartbeat has presented twelve fully-realized productions, often featuring new chamber arrangements and English translations. Heartbeat 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. This spring, Heartbeat took Lady M, its adaptation of Verdi's Macbeth, online and sold out 32 Virtual Soirées, reaching 740 households across 5 continents. Heartbeat has taken its productions to the Kennedy Center, BAM, and Chamber Music North West in Portland, Oregon. It staged the first ever opera performance on The High Line and has mounted its immensely popular, interdisciplinary Halloween Drag Extravaganza each year since its founding, in iconic venues such as National Sawdust and Roulette.

Heartbeat has been hailed across the national and international press, including in three 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).

Heartbeat has collaborated with organizations such as Atlas DIY and A BroaderWay to bring opera education to young people in NYC. It is represented by the world class artist agency Opus 3 Artists.

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