Touring & Licensing
Discover Heartbeat's radical new adaptations of the great classical operas, reorchestrated for exhilarating 90-minute performances. For touring inquiries, email info@heartbeatopera.org.
CARMEN
The border is a place of intense turmoil. This radical new adaptation strips down Bizet’s explosive masterpiece to the four central characters as they hurl themselves against real and imaginary fences. Carmen’s existential dare seduces the enemy in uniform – but in the game of sexual transgression, which lines cannot be crossed?
LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR
In this radical and intimate new vision, Lucia’s tale of daring and passion bursts forth from the heart and brain of a nameless asylum inmate and shatters the silence of her captivity. Listening to Donizetti’s opera on the radio, the inmate uses elements of the institutional world around her to fantasize herself into the story, defying the oppressiveness of her surroundings. Her madness begins when she can no longer distinguish between reality and fantasy. Opera becomes synonymous with the unquenchable desire for a life that will not be contained.
FIDELIO
A black activist is wrongfully incarcerated. His wife, Leah, disguises herself to infiltrate the system and free him. But when injustice reigns, one woman's grit may not be enough to save her love. Featuring the voices of imprisoned people and new English dialogue, this daring 90-minute adaptation pits corruption against courage, hate against hope.
KAFKA-FRAGMENTS
Kurtág’s magnum opus Kafka-Fragments (1985-7) captures forty fleeting moments. Two travelers - Annie Rosen, mezzo soprano, and Jacob Ashworth, violin - are intertwined in a kaleidoscopic dream. In brief bursts of meaning, we witness a montage of human experience: memories, joys, woes, and exclamations illuminate the void and disappear like shooting stars. Kurtág chose these forty fragments largely from Kafka's letters to Milena Jesenska and from the so-called Blue Octavo Notebooks. They range from ironic observations to philosophical musings, to fantastical visions.
LADY M
Lady M wants more. More power, more money—more of whatever will make her happy. She drives her husband, whose stock is rising, to eliminate the competition. But in a city of glass towers, where there is always more to desire, satisfaction—and sleep—are slippery. Created entirely in quarantine, LADY M is Heartbeat's newest operatic endeavor—an online fantasia of Verdi's Macbeth.