New York’s Heartbeat Opera has announced its 2026-27 season. The season opens with Heartbeat’s signature Drag Opera Extravaganza with “Queeny Todd: The Demon Bottom of Fleet Street.” The production will be Created by Kemar Jewel, Jacob Ashworth, and Peregrine Teng Heard, Arranged by Dan Schlosberg and directed by ballroom Legend Kemar Jewel. The Music will be led by Jacob Ashworth and Dan {…}
Heartbeat Opera is set to revive its adaptation of Samuel Barber’s “Vanessa” this Spring. The production will come to New York City for the first time, following a celebrated debut at the Williamstown Theatre Festival last summer. The production, which runs from May 12–31, 2026 at Baruch Performing Arts Center, will be directed by R.B. Schlather with a new arrangement {…}
Heartbeat Opera has announced that it has added five performances of its forthcoming production of “MANON!” In sum, there will now be 14 performances of the new 100-minute English-language adaptation of Massenet’s 1884 opera. The run of the work opens on Jan. 28 and runs through Feb. 15 at The Space at Irondale. “MANON!” features a new English book and {…}
Heartbeat Opera will mark the 10th anniversary of its annual drag opera tradition with “ORGY & BESS: Deep Throats & High Notes,” running Oct. 30–31 and Nov. 1, 4, 6–8, 2025, at Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village. The production, created by Co-Founder Ethan Heard and Artistic Director Jacob Ashworth, takes inspiration from “Porgy & Bess” while skewering the broader {…}
New York’s Heartbeat Opera is set to present a new adaptation of Samuel Barber’s rarely performed opera “Vanessa” at the Williamstown Theatre Festival (WTF). The production, which will be directed by visionary R.B. Schlather, will be the first-ever opera presented at WTF. The work will be performed nine times between July 17 and August 3, 2025. Of the adaptation, Schlather {…}
New York’s Heartbeat Opera is set to present a new adaptation of Charles Gounod’s “Faust.” The new production will be showcased for seven performances between May 13 and 25, 2025 at Baruch Performing Arts Center. Co-adapted by Heartbeat Opera Artistic Director Jacob Ashworth and director Sara Holdren, Faust is reimagined into something new with a surprising twist ending. Inspired by {…}
The Public Theater presents the new experimental work by Christian De Gré Cárdenas,”LUCINE! or birdshit: a human concerto with string & void.” While not an operetta in the traditional sense, “LUCINE!” draws on operatic logic, musical structure, and character-driven theatricality. Bethany Geraghty and Eric Eaton perform in the work scored for voice and cello. Gama Valle directs. De Gré Cárdenas, {…}
Heartbeat Opera has announced two upcoming productions for 2025. First up is “Salome” this February at the Irondale in Brooklyn. The Strauss work will be presented in an adaptation by Jacob Ashworth and Elizabeth Dinkova for seven singers and an arrangement by Dan Schlosberg for eight clarinetists and two percussionists. It will star Summer Hassan, Patrick Cook, Nathaniel Sullivan, Manna {…}
Heartbeat Opera is set to present “Slaylem: The Witch Trials” this October. The original drag opera created by Nico Krell and Jacob Ashworth features arrangements by Dan Schlosberg of music by Britten, Ponchielli, Adams, Copland, Floyd Pedeerecki, Mozart, Donizetti, and Bellini, featuring newly written English Lyrics. The work is a gothic comedy that “dances on the grave of early American {…}
Heartbeat Opera is set to present two new works as part of its Spring Fest. First up is “Eugene Onegin” in a brand-new 100-minute adaptation. The opera aims to explore the seminal opera through “the lens of Tchaikovsky’s suppressed queerness.” “This reimagining of ‘Eugene Onegin’ comes at a time in which many Russian artists are being forced to flee the {…}
Heartbeat Opera will present “The Golden Cock” at Roulette in Brooklyn on Nov. 9 at 7:30 PM and Nov. 10 at 7:00 PM and 9:30 PM. Heartbeat Opera’s adaptation of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Golden Cockerel” takes the original story and transforms it into a drag show with costumes by celebrated New York designer David Quinn. The drag extravaganza is Heartbeat’s most {…}