Opera is an artistic medium that articulates and confronts human passions with powerful immediacy. This conviction is what drives Heartbeat Opera’s desire to rejuvenate opera and to transform its recognized masterpieces from venerated relics into freshly challenging encounters.
In this stunning adaptation of Beethoven’s 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. Fidelio’s live cast of five singers and seven musicians are joined by a prerecorded virtual chorus of more than 100 incarcerated singers from six prison choirs in the United States. The result is “Imaginative, vital and heartbreaking” (The New Yorker). This daring work pits corruption against courage, hate against hope.
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"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"
Letters From The Inside
In 2018, Heartbeat Opera collaborated with more than 100 incarcerated singers and 70 “outside” volunteer singers in six prison choirs across four Midwestern states (Ohio, Kansas, Minnesota, and Iowa) to create a special music video of “O Welche Lust,” the Prisoners Chorus in Fidelio. Learn more.