Why upstart US opera company’s stripped-down productions have found an audience
Heartbeat Opera members talk about putting on minimalist operas and how their reimagined classics have won over New York audiences
Dan Schlosberg remembers the day 11 years ago when his upstart opera company put on its first performance – in a yoga studio before an audience of 30 people.
“We did Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins accompanied by an upright piano that we got for free on Craigslist and a violin,” said Schlosberg, Heartbeat Opera’s musical director and one of its founders.
Its name came “from the idea that singers would be feet away from you”, Schlosberg said. “And so you would be experiencing their voices at arm’s length and that would make a resonance in your heart.”
Today, when many opera companies are struggling financially, Heartbeat appears to be thriving, with an annual budget that just passed US$1 million.
But true to its initial vision, the company still performs in small venues, most with a seating capacity of about 200.
“Very few small companies take up the ambition to do the fullness of opera on a small scale,” said Jacob Ashworth, another founding member and Heartbeat’s artistic director. “We don’t do small opera. We do big opera in a small space.”