For the last decade, Heartbeat Opera has treated the classics like rough drafts: The scores of “Carmen” and “Madama Butterfly,” “Fidelio” and “Der Freischütz” have been starting points for something fresh, urgent and immediate.
In New York, a city with fewer and fewer spaces for opera, Heartbeat sits harmoniously between the Prototype Festival, which stages new music theater at a chamber scale, and the grand tradition of the Metropolitan Opera.
Heartbeat draws from the canon but reimagines it with an avant-garde spirit and an eye toward the issues of our time: gun violence, Black Lives Matter, the #MeToo movement.
Performed on intimate stages, the resulting productions smartly elicit strong reactions, whatever those may be.
I haven’t liked all of Heartbeat’s shows, but I’ve never walked away with a shrug, and I’ve never regretted going.
Persons:
“ Carmen ”, ”, haven’t, I’ve, Tchaikovsky’s “ Eugene Onegin
Organizations:
Metropolitan Opera, Baruch Performing Arts Center
Locations:
New York