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Review: Beethoven Returns for the Age of Black Lives Matter
Heartbeat Opera’s powerful take on “Fidelio,” as an indictment of mass incarceration, has been revived and revised for a post-2020 world.
By Joshua Barone
Feb. 14, 2022, 12:41 p.m. ET
Fidelio
NYT Critic's Pick
From left, Curtis Bannister, Kelly Griffin and Derrell Acon in Heartbeat Opera’s adaptation of Beethoven’s “Fidelio” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, ahead of a tour that continues through this month.Credit...Julieta Cervantes for The New York Times
Beethoven’s only opera, “Fidelio,” is hardly a fixed text. He wrote several possible overtures for it and reworked the score substantially over the course of a decade. But its meaning never changed: the heroism to be found in devotion, love and freedom in the face of injustice.
In 2018, the daring and imaginative Heartbeat Opera — an enterprise that, while small and still young, has already contributed more to opera’s vitality than most major American companies — took the malleable history of “Fidelio” one step further, adapting the work as a moving indictment of mass incarceration.
That production has now been revised for a revival that opened at the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium at the Metropolitan Museum of Art last weekend, ahead of a tour that continues through the end of the month. Already inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this “Fidelio” is now permeated with it, and the adaptation is even more powerful.
Bannister, left, as Stan, an imprisoned Black Lives Matter activist, and Griffin as Leah, his wife, who plots to free him.Credit...Julieta Cervantes for The New York Times
In Beethoven’s original singspiel — a music theater form in which sung numbers are set up by spoken scenes — a woman named Leonore disguises herself as a man, Fidelio, to infiltrate the prison where her husband, Florestan, is being held for political reasons. She aims to free him from execution while exposing the crimes of his captor, Pizarro.
Ethan Heard, a founder of Heartbeat, adapted “Fidelio” for the company and collaborated with the playwright Marcus Scott on the new book. Their revision tells the story of a Black Lives Matter activist named Stan — sung by Curtis Bannister, a tenor of impressive stamina — who has been imprisoned for nearly a year, and whose wife, Leah, given an affectingly agonized lower range by the soprano Kelly Griffin, is at a breaking point as she struggles to free him.
She gets a job as a guard at the prison; her strategy to reach Stan in solitary confinement (much as in Beethoven’s original) is to ingratiate herself with a senior guard (here Roc, sung with both charm and dramatic complexity by the bass-baritone Derrell Acon) and court his daughter (here Marcy, smooth-voiced yet strong in the soprano Victoria Lawal’s portrayal). In this telling, there is no need for the cross-dressing: Marcy and Leah are both queer. And, crucially, all of these characters are Black, a fact that looms before guiding the awakenings of Marcy and her father as they face their complicity in a racist system that, Leah says, is designed to punish “people whose only mistake was being poor and Black.”
Corey McKern, who plays a Trump-like Pizarro, with Acon, a senior prison guard.Credit...Julieta Cervantes for The New York Times
The spoken text is in English throughout, while the arias remain in their original German — a testament to the timelessness of Beethoven, though the production’s surtitles take some liberties with the translation. (As an excuse for briefly letting the prisoners out into the sun, Roc sings that it’s the king’s name day, but the titles say that it’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day.)
Radically transformed, too, is the score, arranged by Daniel Schlosberg for two pianos, two horns, two cellos and percussion, with the multitasking (and nearly scene-stealing) Schlosberg onstage, conducting from the keyboard. Expressive cellos reveal the characters’ thoughts, and the horns add an aura of muscularity and honor. The most substantial interventions are in the percussion, with drum hits deployed to dramatic effect and a whiplike slap adding terror to Pizarro’s murder-plotting “Ha, welch’ ein Augenblick.”
The soprano Victoria Lawal as Marcy, who awakens to her complicity in a racist system of mass incarceration.Credit...Julieta Cervantes for The New York Times
Not all the changes from 2018 were necessary, or wise. Starting with the venue: This production originated in a black box space at Baruch Performing Arts Center, which fit the chamber scale of the music and emphasized the cinder-block claustrophobia of Reid Thompson’s set. At the Met, the show floats on an expansive stage and struggles with poor acoustics.
And the text has lost some of its grace, with pandering references to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and President Donald J. Trump’s infamous call for the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.” A casualty of these lapses is the baritone Corey McKern’s Pizarro, who is something of a Trump stand-in, a caricature among nuanced, human characters.
You could almost forgive that at “O welche Lust,” the famous prisoners’ chorus, still the emotional high point of the production and now a coup de théâtre. For the stirring number, Leah unlocks a chest — a metaphor for the prison gates — to release a white screen, on which a video is projected, featuring 100 incarcerated singers and 70 volunteers from six prison ensembles. The camera often lingers on individual faces, to an effect not unlike that of Barry Jenkins’s filmmaking, the way his sustained close-ups invite intimacy and, above all, sympathy.
A hundred incarcerated singers and 70 volunteers from six prison ensembles, recorded and projected onstage, sing the famous prisoners’ chorus “O welche Lust.”Credit...Julieta Cervantes for The New York Times
For curious audience members, Heartbeat has shared letters from some of the participants. They range from endearing — Michael “Black” Powell II’s “German was hard!!” — to profound, such as this from Douglass Elliott: “Most of us are victims of our circumstances who when faced with adversities chose the wrong direction with our actions. This choir makes us feel that ‘normal’ feeling for a short time every week. We are accepted as humans, not looked at as numbers.”
Beethoven’s triumphant finale could have been an insult to the contemporary reality Heartbeat’s production aims to conjure. So after Stan is freed and Pizarro defeated, Leah awakes at the same desk where, in the opening, she has had a frustrating phone call with a lawyer. This twist, that it was all a dream, is of course a tired trope, but what follows isn’t.
After a moment of despair — her happiness felt so real — she stands, steps to a spotlight at center stage and holds up her phone, assuming the pose of her husband’s activism, with which the production began. An ambivalent closing scene, it is an honest reflection of our time: of the mixed successes of Black Lives Matter, yes, and of the only possible way forward.
Fidelio
Performed at the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, Manhattan, and touring through Feb. 27; heartbeatopera.org.
Joshua Barone is the assistant performing arts editor on the Culture Desk and a contributing classical music critic. @joshbarone • Facebook
Heartbeat's co-music director Daniel Schlosberg walks us through moments in Verdi's inspirational score for Macbeth. Schlosberg collaborated with music director Jacob Ashworth and sound & electronics designer Senem Pirler to breathe fresh life into Verdi for Heartbeat's newest adaptation: LADY M.
“Our adaptation locates the Macbeths in a city like Manhattan—a city defined by striving, climbing, excelling. In the opera, the Macbeths’ path to power is bloody and ends on a battlefield; in 2020, what would this couple undertake to achieve all that fate promises them? They would scheme, sure. Maybe they would get involved in fraud, insider trading, or worse, if they thought they could grasp the power and security that massive wealth connotes in our country, where there is no crown to claim.“ -Dramaturg’s Notes
A few video clips from the Heartbeat Opera / Opera Lafayette co-production of Alessandro Stradella’s La Susanna that I saw at the Kennedy Center this past spring.
The intriguing “mezzo-contralto” voice that you hear in the first third of the video is that of Sara Couden, one of my personal faves, in the narratorial role of Testo (reimagined as a scholar of women’s studies).
The middle third features an aria sung by Lucía Martín Cartón in the title role; I felt like I was suddenly seeing her name everywhere last year, and I think her performance in La Susanna demonstrated good reason for her success. She’s an alumna of Les Arts Florissants’ Jardin des Voix training program and displays the refined technical control and sensitive text-reading typical of its graduates.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Announces the New MetLiveArts Season of Performances
Live performance returns to The Met's galleries and theater with a fall 2021 lineup that features an evening of music by Gavin Creel and more.
by Alexa Criscitiello Aug. 27, 2021
The Met today announced a new season of live performances with in-person audiences beginning fall 2021 and a new Artist in Residence, the acclaimed dancer and choreographer Bijayini Satpathy. Beginning in October, performances will once again take place in galleries throughout the Museum, as well as in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, and will feature MetLiveArts commissions and leading international musicians and composers.
"MetLiveArts has always been an innovator in the field, producing compelling works that illuminate The Met's collection and galleries in new and often surprising ways," said Max Hollein, Marina Kellen French Director of The Met. "This season brings a range of powerful programs, and we are thrilled to again invite audiences back to the Museum to engage with the exhilarating performances we have ahead."
Limor Tomer, Lulu C. and Anthony W. Wang General Manager of Live Arts, commented: "After nearly a year and a half, we are so excited to welcome back our audiences to experience the visceral force and power of live performance and what it means to once again share energy and space with dynamic artists and fellow enthusiasts. We have always asked our performers to create works that challenge them, and this past year has put that invitation to the test for so many. This new season will include some of the most personal, unexpected, and inventive works of any MetLiveArts season."
Artists this season include Tony and Olivier Award-winner Gavin Creel (Hello, Dolly!; West End production of The Book of Mormon); a world-premiere work by Arvo Pärt at the Temple of Dendur; four-time Grammy Award-winner Angélique Kidjo in an intimate performance; the Dessoff Choirs and Orchestra with soprano Laquita Mitchell; and Heartbeat Opera's acclaimed original production of Beethoven's Fidelio.
During the past 17 months, MetLiveArts has presented virtual performances, including Sonic Cloisters, the popular ongoing series of electronic music concerts filmed in the galleries and courtyards of The Met Cloisters. While the Museum was closed to the public, there were new concerts filmed in the galleries amid the iconic art, as well as digital premieres of past performances-both of which have encouraged audiences from around the world to engage with brilliant musicians and The Met collection and spaces. The Museum's resident quartet, ETHEL & Friends, will continue their weekly virtual series, Balcony Bar from Home.
Performances will be ticketed and open rehearsals will be free with Museum admission.
Artist in Residence: Bijayini Satpathy
Hailed by The New Yorker as "a performer of exquisite grace and technique," the revered Odissi dancer Bijayini Satpathy will be the 2021-22 MetLiveArts Artist in Residence. She will premiere new site-specific works and collaborate with musicians, visual artists, and dancers. Satpathy launched her solo career in 2019, after 25 years as a principal dancer with the lionized Nrityagram Dance Ensemble based in Bangalore, India. As a soloist, Satpathy creates new works that reflect her interest in challenging the tradition and vision of Odissi, and for The Met she will explore that interest through performances in unexpected areas of the Museum's collection, with a special focus on works in modern and contemporary art. During her Museum residency, she will further expand her choreographic language beyond the Indian dance form and collaborate with a range of artists and Met curators.
Satpathy's residency will include in-gallery performances, extensive workshops with New York City-based students and professional dancers, and auditorium performances.
Open rehearsals will begin in January 2022 and take place in five gallery spaces throughout The Met, including the Astor Court; Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia; and the Fuentidueña Chapel at The Met Cloisters. All open rehearsals will take place during Museum hours and will be open to the public. Details about performances in spring and fall 2022 will be announced.
Fall 2021 and Early Winter 2022 Performances:
Gavin Creel: Walk on Through
Monday, October 25, 2021, at 6 and 8:30 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Tony and Olivier Award-winner Gavin Creel was a museum novice for most of his 20 years living in New York City. Invited to create a program for MetLiveArts, he spent countless hours over the past year exploring the Museum's galleries, finding inspiration, and falling in love with The Met. Experience Creel's newfound passion and sense of wonder for The Met in his newly composed songs that make the art sing.
Tickets start at $25.
Celebrating Arvo Pärt at The Met
Sunday, October 31, 2021, at 3 p.m., and Monday, November 1, 2021, at 7 p.m.
The Temple of Dendur
The Temple of Dendur is the setting for a world-premiere a cappella choral work from the beloved Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, composed to celebrate the reopening of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which was destroyed on September 11, 2001. The Schola Cantorum choir are joined by Grammy Award-winning Experiential Orchestra in an evening of masterpieces composed over Pärt's career, which has spanned seven decades.
Tickets start at $65.
The Orchestra Now, Conducted by Leon Botstein:
Beethoven and Cristofori, The Piano's First Century
Sunday, December 5, 2021, at 2 p.m.
Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 illuminates the transformation of piano music, which began with Bartolomeo Cristofori's breakthrough invention of the fortepiano. The Grand Piano (1720) by Bartolomeo Cristofori (Italian) is on view in Gallery 684 at The Met Fifth Avenue and is part of the Museum's Musical Instruments collection.
Stravinsky, Picasso, and Cubism
Sunday, February 20, 2022, at 2 p.m.
Featuring Stravinsky's Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments and Pablo Picasso's Man with a Guitar.
Igor Stravinsky's deconstructed and reassembled music from the 1920s was heavily influenced by the work of his friend Pablo Picasso. One of his masterpieces from this period is this concerto, which Stravinsky loved to perform himself.
Dvořák, Macdowell, and Delacroix: The New World
Sunday, April 10, 2022, at 2 p.m.
Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, From the New World (Mvt. 2); Edward MacDowell's Suite No. 2, Indian; and Eugène Delacroix's The Natchez
From their earliest encounters in the New World, Europeans were mesmerized by the Indigenous peoples of North America. French artist Eugène Delacroix painted a Natchez family as they fled the massacre of their tribe up the Mississippi River. Edward MacDowell's Indian Suite incorporated Indigenous melodies and rhythms, and the second movement of Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony was inspired by Longfellow's poem on Hiawatha.
All performances take place in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium.
Tickets start at $30; $75 for the series.
Christmas with the Dessoff Choirs
Sunday, December 19, 2021, at 3 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Led by director Malcolm J. Merriweather, the Dessoff Choirs and Orchestra welcome the holiday season with two works by highly influential yet underrepresented composers: Margaret Bonds and Mary Lou Williams. The concert features The Ballad of the Brown King, a Christmas cantata by Margaret Bonds, and the great Jazz composer Mary Lou Williams's Black Christ of the Andes, along with some of Williams's other rarely heard choral works. The performance features internationally recognized soloists, soprano Laquita Mitchell, mezzo-soprano Lucia Bradford, and tenor Noah Stewart.
Tickets start at $25.
Angélique Kidjo at The Met
Monday, December 27, and Tuesday, December 28, 2021, at 6 and 8:30 p.m.
The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing
Four-time Grammy Award-winner and "Africa's premier diva" (Time) Angélique Kidjo performs an intimate site-specific program devoted to the Museum's collection of African art. Set in the galleries of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, which are currently closed in preparation for renovation and reenvisioning, Kidjo's performance anticipates the vision and reinstallation of the galleries, underscoring the aesthetic qualities, authorship, provenance, and cultural context of the art to be displayed.
Tickets start at $65.
Beethoven's Fidelio
Heartbeat Opera
Thursday, February 10; Saturday, February 12; and Monday, February 14, 2022, at 7 p.m.
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Adapted and directed by Ethan Heard
Music arranged and directed by Daniel Schlosberg
New English dialogue by Marcus Scott and Ethan Heard
When a Black activist is wrongfully incarcerated, his wife disguises herself to infiltrate the system and free him, but injustice reigns. In this daring adaptation created by Heartbeat Opera, Beethoven's classic is reimagined in the time and context of the Black Lives Matter movement. The opera will feature the voices of more than 100 incarcerated singers and volunteers from prison choirs.
Tickets start at $25.
For tickets, visit metmuseum.org/performances, call 212-570-3949, or stop by any desk in the Great Hall at The Met Fifth Avenue.
Your ticket includes Museum admission on the day of the event.
MetLiveArts performances require all guests age 12 and older to show proof of full vaccination (at least 14 days after the second dose of a two-dose series vaccine, or at least 14 days after a single-dose vaccine). Children under 12 must be accompanied by a fully vaccinated adult. The Met may require additional safety measures for these performances and will communicate such measures to confirmed guests in advance. More information on The Met's comprehensive safety procedures can be found on metmuseum.org.
A talky trailer for the co-production of Stradella’s La Susanna by Heartbeat Opera and Opera Lafayette, which I am super psyched to see at the Kennedy Center tomorrow. (Attention, New Yorkers: it’ll be at BAM May 2-5.)
Cheers to Heartbeat Opera for bringing us the lesbian Pur ti miro we deserve. In this staging from the company’s 2018 fundraiser show, Dragus Maximus, the song is assigned not to Nero and Poppaea but to Sappho (Nicolette Mavroleon) and Muse (Sara Couden).
Video shot on October 27 by moi.
The trappings of 19th century opera hold very little appeal for me, so I have a lot of holes in my opera knowledge. I also figure that the 50 most popular operas will be around forever and I'm fine to just wait and encounter (and enjoy??) them later.
That's certainly true of any of Massenet's operas. A reduced version of Massenet's opera Manon by Brooklyn's Heartbeat Opera was about the only way I would see it. They have been doing opera reductions for a few years now and I really enjoyed their scaled down Faust (Guonod) last year, so I was in. The scaled down the score dramatically to 8 instrumentalists, reduced the singing roles to 7 singers, cast some of those roles with musical theater singers rather than experienced opera singers, translated it into English and pared it all down to about 100 minutes -- perfect!
It was a really good summary/introduction to the opera. In the smaller spaces they use it sounded just rightly sized. They were inventive with the sets (including the above chandeliers whenever we were in a high-society location) and the costuming was basic French 18th century dress.
The staging was taut, we had no long digressions or crowd scenes or anything that wasn't placing Manon's story front and center. (I can see from descriptions, there's a ballet in the original too--yes required for the Paris Opera, but fine for me to skip.) Our Manon (Amma Grimsley) was excellent, especially as she turns from devoted woman in love to basking in the high life. The most standout performer was probably our Lescaut (Jamari Darling), who came across believably as the rogue who decides to sell his cousin off to a rich suitor, and he slayed as he lived the high life of having successfully captured Manon for the rich banker Guillot. That man knows how to walk a catwalk and he pranced and reveled in being a part of Guillot's circle -- riveting and fun as hell to watch. I'm not going to name the rest of the cast, but they all fit very well the small space highlighted their acting and agility (no park and bark here!) Dan Schlosberg's musical arrangements were even more full and complete than might have been suggested from 8 players--it never felt threadbare or underwhelming, but rather sized just right. This is a great way to hear 19th century opera--fantastic.
Manon! - Heartbeat Opera, The Space at Irondale, Brooklyn, NY. Dan Schlossberg, musical arranger and conductor. English text adaptation by Jacob Ashworth and Rory Pelsue. 15 February, 2026. Credits: https://www.heartbeatopera.org/manon