this week in opera

RAW AND NASTY OPERA: HEARTBEAT’S MANON!

MANON!
The Space at Irondale
85 South Oxford St. between Fulton St. & Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn
January 27 – February 15, $28.32-$116.75
www.heartbeatopera.org

“What will be surprising and exciting about this is how raw and some might even say nasty opera can be,” Natalie Walker says in a promotional video for Heartbeat Opera’s Manon!, running January 27 through February 15 at the Space at Irondale. The indie opera company is presenting a unique take on Jules Massenet’s 1884 opéra comique, based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost. Set during the reign of King Louis XV, the narrative tells the story of a convent-bound woman who is caught between two men, the Chevalier Des Grieux and finance minister Guillot. Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille’s original libretto has been adapted with a new book and English lyrics by Jacob Ashworth and Rory Pelsue, with Golden Age–style musical arrangements by conductor Dan Schlosberg; the show is directed by Obie winner Pelsue (The Last Bimbo of the Apocalypse, Circle Jerk) and choreographed by Sara Gettelfinger.

The cast features Emma Grimsley as Manon, Matt Dengler as the Chevalier, Glenn Seven Allen as Guillot, Jamari Darling as Lescaut, Justin Lee Miller as the Count Des Grieux, Kathryn McCreary as Pousette, and Walker as Javotte; the set is by Alexander Woodward, with costumes by David Mitsch, lighting by Yichen Zhou, and sound by Ryan Gamblin. The eight-piece orchestra consists of Pablo O’Connell on oboe and English horn, Atao Liu on bassoon, Nicolee Kuester on horn, Deanna Cirielli on harp, Julia Danitz on violin, Thapelo Masita on cello, Eleonore Oppenheim on bass, and Schlosberg on keyboards. There are still some pay-what-you-want preview tickets available starting at $10, but you need to act fast to grab them.

“No one’s ever done anything like this,” Dengler promises in the video.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

“I AM MUSIC”: ANTHONY ROTH COSTANZO CHANNELS MARIA CALLAS IN GALAS

Anthony Roth Costanzo is sensational as a fictionalized version of Maria Callas in Galas at Little Island

GALAS: A MODERN TRAGEDY
The Amph at Little Island
Pier 55, Hudson River Park at West Thirteenth St.
September 6-28, $10 standing room, $25 seats, 8:30
littleisland.org

The first half of Eric Ting’s exciting version of Charles Ludlam’s rarely revived 1983 downtown hit, Galas: A Modern Tragedy, is everything you want it to be: hilariously campy, with fabulous singing, outrageous staging, and delicious costumes. The second half veers far off course until righting itself for a thrilling finale.

Ludlam, who founded the highly influential Ridiculous Theater Company in 1967, wrote, directed, and starred in the original, portraying the title character, Maria Magdalena Galas, an opera diva based on American-born Greek soprano Maria Callas. Today, the use of the word “tragedy” in the subtitle is twofold: the revered Callas died in 1977 at the age of fifty-three, while the beloved Ludlam passed away in 1987 when he was just forty-four, of AIDS.

Despite the inspired lunacy of the acting and plot, Galas is surprisingly faithful to Callas’s life and career. The show begins at the Verona train station, where successful brick industrialist Giovanni Baptista Mercanteggini (Carmelita Tropicana) is waiting to pick up Galas (Anthony Roth Costanzo), who is scheduled to perform the lead role in Amilcare Ponchielli’s La Gioconda at the Arena di Verona. They meet at a café, where they have a delightful and meaningful exchange.

Galas: You are an opera lover?
Mercanteggini: Yes, I’m a real aficionado. Now there’s something we have in common, eh?
Galas: What’s that?
Mercanteggini: We are both music lovers.
Galas: I am not a music lover. I am a musician.
Mercanteggini: But surely you love music.
Galas: I am a musician. And because I am a singer I am a musical instrument. A music lover, no. I am music.
Mercanteggini: But you don’t love it? Not even a little bit?
Galas: I wouldn’t dare. Art is so great it frightens me sometimes.

Carmelita Tropicana and Anthony Roth Costanzo make a fine comic duo in Galas

Mercanteggini offers her a deal: He will serve as her manager and benefactor for one year; she agrees, moving into his home, where she encounters his brusque housekeeper, Bruna Lina Rasta (Mary Testa), a former soprano based on Lina Bruna Rasa, who had a meltdown onstage and, because of mental illness, stopped singing.

Soon Galas and Mercanteggini are married, and she experiences success on tour but it’s not enough; she desperately wants to become a company member of La Scala. Fritalini (Samora la Perdida) and Ghingheri (Austin Durant) of La Scala offer her a onetime slot as a guest-artist replacement for the ill Baldini to sing La Gioconda, which she reluctantly does after some fabulous prima donna fits of pique. Later, after a tough negotiation, Galas does become a company member, agreeing to appear in I Vespri Siciliani, Norma, and Don Carlo on the condition that she sing La Traviata as well, an occasion for even more entertaining diva displays.

While the feverish Italian press offers ever-more outré explanations for her significant weight loss, which made her a svelte femme fatale, Galas has a contentious audience with Pope Sixtus VII (la Perdida), with whom she argues about the value of Wagner’s operas, and later has to cut short her performance of Norma at La Scala because she has lost control of her voice.

Giving up singing, she heads out with Mercanteggini and Bruna on a yacht owned by wealthy womanizer Aristotle Plato Socrates Odysseus (Caleb Eberhardt), who is traveling with his wife, Athina (Erin Markey); his former mistress, Hüre von Hoyden (Patricia Black); and gossip columnist Ilka Winterhalter (la Perdida); and takes an instant liking to Galas, not hiding his desire. (After ten years of marriage, Callas left Mercanteggini for Aristotle Onassis.) A final conversation between Galas and Bruna reveals a desperate Maria trying to hold on to something, anything.

Tony and Obie winner Mimi Lien’s set features a long, movable catwalk, some furniture, and a tall Greek column with the word Galas at the top in neon lights that change color. Jackson Wiederhoeft’s costumes for Galas are spectacular, from an elegant red gown to a tight-fitting business dress. The other costumes, by Hahnji Jang, are fun and frolicsome, especially the getups for the pope. Jiyoun Chang’s lighting and Tei Blow’s sound work well in the outdoor setting. Raja Feather Kelly’s choreography is way too over the top during the yacht scene.

Rare revival of Charles Ludlam’s Galas continues through September 28

Countertenor Costanzo, who has appeared in lead roles for the Metropolitan Opera, the English National Opera, the Teatro Real Madrid, and other international companies and is the general director and president of the innovative Opera Philadelphia, has become Little Island’s breakout star; last year he performed all the live singing parts in an almost-solo version of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, and he is outstanding here as Galas, wearing fanciful outfits, dishing dirt, and luxuriating in the high life but understanding that it could all go away in the blink of an eye. The role was originally played by Ludlam, then by the late Ludlam’s longtime partner, Everett Quinton, in the first-ever revival in 2019. (Quinton designed the costumes and played Bruna in the 1983 staging.)

Obie winner Testa (On the Town, Oklahoma!) serves as the anchor for the show, balancing pathos with physical comedy and her lovely singing voice. Tropicana (With What Ass Does the Cockroach Sit?/Con Que Culo Se Sienta la Cucaracha, Memorias de la Revolucion) is a hoot as the short and stout Mercanteggini, and la Perdida sparkles as the nonbinary pontiff.

Obie-winning director Ting (The Comeuppance, Between Two Knees), who helmed Alina Troyano and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!, guides numerous delightful moments in the first half, particularly with his interpretation of a train arriving at a station and his later use of chandeliers, but the yacht scenes drag on, feeling like a Fellini movie that was never released. And the way the characters say “La Scala” with their tongues sticking out is humorous at first but eventually dries up.

Galas is at its best when Costanzo is singing, whether an aria from Carmen, “Casta Diva” from Norma, or additional selections he made. But even with its troubled center section, it’s a triumphant tribute to a downtown theater legend, an eternal opera diva, and the cost of living for art.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

HARLEM PRESENTS: OPERA EBONY IN MARCUS GARVEY PARK

Who: Opera Ebony
What: The Harlem Opera Festival
Where: Richard Rodgers Amphitheater, Marcus Garvey Park, Fifth Ave. at 124th St.
When: Saturday, July 26, free (advance RSVP recommended), 7:00
Why: Now in its fifty-first season, the nonprofit Opera Ebony is the longest continually operated Black opera company in the world. Founded in 1973 by bass baritone Benjamin Matthews with mezzo-soprano Sis. Elise Sisson (SBS), music director Wayne Sanders, and conductor Margaret Harris, the troupe has staged works around the globe, from Carmen, Aida, and La Traviata to Porgy & Bess, Faust, and Cosi Fan Tutte in addition to such original pieces as Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, The Meetin’, and O’Freedom.

As part of Harlem Presents, Opera Ebony is holding a pair of concerts prior to the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s production of Will Power and Carl Cofield’s Memnon at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park. The forty-five-minute concerts start at 7:00, the play at 8:30; arriving early to see the music has the added benefit of garnering you an excellent seat for Memnon, as the amphitheater fills up pretty quickly.

On July 19, baritone Shavon Lloyd sang “Silvio’s Aria” from Pagliacci, the spiritual “Ride on King Jesus,” H. Leslie Adams’s “Prayer,” and “Make Them Hear You” from Ragtime, while mezzo soprano Daveda Browne performed “Seguidilla” from Carmen, “Mon Coeur” from Samson and Delilah, “When I Am Laid” from Dido and Æneas, and the spiritual “Wade in the Water.” They were both accompanied by pianist Kyle P. Walker; the program for July 26 will feature soprano Linnesha Crump and tenor David Morgans performing pieces by Wagner, Bizet, Puccini, Cilea, and Gershwin and duetting on William Still’s “Calm as the Bayou Waters.” Be sure to check out the pop-up market with community outreach booths, fashion and beauty boutiques, and food and drink from Creole Soul, Lizzy’s Treats, Kiki’s Cookies, Greensicle, Campbell & Carr, and Bee Favored. (The preshow music and market will be different on July 25 and July 27.) The concert and play are free; advance RSVP is recommended.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

LEGACY, MEMORY, AND IMPERMANENCE: CELEBRATING MEREDITH MONK AT IFC

Meredith Monk looks at her past, present, and future in Billy Shebar’s celebratory and deeply affecting documentary

MONK IN PIECES: A CONCEPT ALBUM (Billy Shebar, 2025)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
July 24–31
www.ifccenter.com
monkinpieces.com

Near the beginning of Billy Shebar’s revelatory documentary, Monk in Pieces, composer Philip Glass explains that Meredith Monk “was a self-contained theater company. She, amongst all of us, I think, was the uniquely gifted one — is the uniquely gifted one.” It’s an important correction because Monk, at eighty-three, is still hard at work, creating live performances and films that defy categorization.

While several of her earliest projects were met with derision in critical circles, today she is revered for her remarkable output, although it is still impossible to put her into any kind of box. At one point in the documentary, a chorus of Monk scholars sings her praises; one says, “She’s achieved so much, has received so many accolades, and yet she’s this unknown,” a second notes, “She kind of falls through the cracks of music history,” and a third admits, “We don’t know how to talk about her.”

Written, directed, and produced by Shebar — whose wife, coproducer Katie Geissinger, has been performing with Monk since 1990 — and David Roberts, Monk in Pieces does a wonderful job of righting those wrongs, celebrating her artistic legacy while she shares private elements of her personal and professional life. Born and raised in Manhattan, Monk details her vision problem, known as strabismus, in which she is unable to see out of both eyes simultaneously in three dimensions, which led her to concentrate on vocals and the movement of her physical self. She studied Dalcroze Eurhythmics: “All musical ideas come from the body; I think that’s where I’m coming from,” she says. All these decades later, her distinctive choreography and wordless tunes are still like nothing anyone else does.

Meredith Monk shares a special moment with her beloved turtle, Neutron

Unfolding at a Monk-like unhurried pace, the ninety-five-minute documentary is divided into thematic chapters based on her songs, including “Dolmen Music,” “Double Fiesta,” “Memory Song,” “Turtle Dreams,” and “Teeth Song,” while exploring such presentations as Juice (1969), the first theatrical event to be held at the Guggenheim; Education of the Girlchild (1973), in which a woman ages in reverse; Quarry (1976), a three-part opera about an American child sick in bed during WWII; Impermanence (2006), inspired by the sudden death of her partner, Mieke von Hook; and her masterwork, Atlas (1991), in which the Houston Grand Opera worries about her numerous requests and production costs, whether the piece will be ready in time, and if it even can be considered opera. There are also clips from Ellis Island, Book of Days, Facing North, and Indra’s Net, her latest show, which was staged at Park Ave. Armory last fall. In addition, Monk reads from her journals in scenes with playful animation by Paul Barritt.

Monk opened up her archives for the filmmakers, so Shebar, Roberts, and editor Sabine Krayenbühl incorporate marvelous photos and video from throughout Monk’s career, along with old and new interviews. “It was her voice that was so extraordinary, not only the different kind of sounds she could make, but the imagination she was using in producing the sound . . . totally individual,” Merce Cunningham says. WNYC New Sounds host John Schaefer gushes, “I don’t know when words like multimedia and interdisciplinary began to become in vogue, but Meredith was all of those things.” Her longtime friend and collaborator Ping Chong offers, “She had to fight to be acknowledged in the performing arts world because critics were saying that what she was doing was nonsensical, was crazy, was not serious; in a way, it’s a fight to survive. Pain is where art comes from. . . . Art has to come out of need. And now she’s an old master.”

And Björk, who recorded Monk’s “Gotham Lullaby,” touts, “Meredith’s melody making is like a timeless door that’s opened, like a gateway to the ancient is found. It definitely affected my DNA. . . . Her loft that she has lived in for half a century is an oasis in a toxic environment.” Among the other collaborators who chime in are longtime company member Lanny Harrison; composer Julia Wolfe; and David Byrne, for whom she created the opening scene of his 1986 film, True Stories, and who says he learned from Monk that “you can do things without words and it still has meaning, it still has an emotional connection.”

Some of the most beautiful moments of the film transpire in Monk’s loft, where she tends to her beloved forty-two-year-old turtle named Neutron, puts stuffed animals on her bed, meditates while staring at windows lined with Tibetan prayer flags, composes a new song, looks into a mirror as she braids her trademark pigtails, and sits at her small kitchen table, eating by herself. Surrounded by plants and personal photographs, she moves about slowly, profoundly alone, comfortable in who she is and what she has accomplished, contemplating what comes next.

“What happens when I’m not here anymore?” Monk, who received the 2014 National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama, asks while working with director Yuval Sharon, conductor Francisco J. Núñez, and performer Joanna Lynn Jacobs on a remounting of Atlas for the LA Philharmonic in 2019. “It’s very rare that anybody gets it.”

Monk in Pieces goes a long way toward rectifying that, filling in the cracks, helping define her place in music history.

Monk in Pieces runs July 24-31 at IFC Center; there will be Q&As following the 6:45 screenings on July 24 with Monk, Shebar, and producer Susan Margolin, moderated by Schaefer; on July 25 with Monk, Shebar, and Margolin, moderated by violist Nadia Sirota; and on July 26 with Shebar.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

WHAT IS THIS? MOZART’S DON GIOVANNI — A ROCK OPERA AT THE CUTTING ROOM

Mozart’s Don Giovanni — A Rock Opera offers a new take on a classic (photo by Ken Howard)

MOZART’S DON GIOVANNI — A ROCK OPERA
The Cutting Room
44 East 32nd St. between Madison & Fifth Aves.
Through July 7, $39-$125, $25 food & beverage minimum per person, 7:00
212-691-1900
thecuttingroomnyc.com
www.dgrocks.com

Rachel Zatcoff is superb as Donna Elvira in Adam B. Levowitz’s rock opera adaptation of Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Cutting Room; if only the rest of the production lived up to her excellence. Mozart’s 1787 tale, with a libretto by Lorenzo DaPonte, is returning to the Met this fall, a two-hundred-minute extravaganza directed by Ivo van Hove and conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Daniele Rustioni; producer, director, and orchestrator Levowitz’s English-language version has been streamlined to about two hours, primarily by eliminating the subplot involving Zerlina and Mesetto.

The crux of the central story is still intact. After bedding Donna Anna (Anchal Dhir), the dashing Don Giovanni (Ryan Silverman) is challenged to a duel by her father, the Commander (Edwin Jhamaal Davis). Giovanni implores the older man to walk away, but his pride gets the best of him, and Giovanni kills him. Anna then insists that her fiancé, the weak-kneed Don Ottavio (Felipe Bombonato), defend her honor and kill Giovanni, which is not really in his wheelhouse.

Meanwhile, a former lover of Giovanni’s, Elvira, has been searching for “the bastard who left me,” prepared to “take a bow knife and slice his heart from his chest . . . for the maidens he deflowered.” Giovanni and his right-hand man, the clownish Leporello (Richard Coleman), keeper of The Almanac of Fornication, come upon a woman they do not recognize at first, and Giovanni turns to woo her until he sees that it is indeed Elvira, who tells him she wants to castrate him. He runs away.

Levowitz’s plot grows more and more silly as Anna and Ottavio seek revenge, Giovanni keeps trying to increase the number of women he has seduced, Elvira has to decide whether she actually loves or hates Giovanni, and Leporello serves Giovanni through thick and thin, providing comic relief that is mostly thin.

Leporello (Richard Coleman) and Donna Elvira (Rachel Zatcoff) know something is afoot in rock opera (photo by Ken Howard)

Mozart’s Don Giovanni — A Rock Opera is misguided from the start. The conceit is that we are gathered at the Cutting Room at the invitation of Baroness Margarete Voigt on December 5, 1891, the centennial of Mozart’s death at the age of thirty-five. We are told in a letter that we are in for “an evening of elegance, fine food and drink (for a modest indulgence), sensuality, and sublime music,” which sets the bar far too high for what ensues.

For two hours, Leporello makes anachronistic, self-referential jokes that fall flat, like “I won’t block your Dopamine / No, no, no, no, no, no / Cue Giovanni and scene” and “Not my circus, not my monkeys / I’m just here for vegan snacks.” The eight-piece band, consisting of two guitars, two trumpets, three trombones, bass, drums, and piano, often feels out of sync; songs work best when it’s just pianist and conductor Nevada Lozano accompanying the singer. There were significant problems with the surtitles projected onto the back screen, as they got stuck or just vanished; in addition, there were numerous typos (rogue/rouge, savoir/savior), and what was being sung was not always exactly what was on the screen. While the sentences still meant the same thing, the slight differences were distracting. Projections that were supposed to identify locations got lost on the carved facade above the stage. The acting was a mixed bag, ranging from excellent to, well, not so excellent. There were also issues with the microphones, which were so close to the performers’ mouths that the sound squealed through the speakers; only the classically trained soprano Zatcoff (The Phantom of the Opera, Candide) kept her mic at a distance, letting her lovely voice sound more naturally through the space. Debbi Hobson’s costumes make it look like the characters are not always in the same time period.

I’m all for reimagining the classics in any way possible, but this Don Giovanni had me aching for something more traditional.

Early on, Anna asks, “My God, What Is This?” After seeing the show, I have the same question.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

PERSEVERING FOR THE TRUTH: THEATER FESTIVAL HONORS VÁCLAV HAVEL

REHEARSAL FOR TRUTH INTERNATIONAL THEATER FESTIVAL: PERSEVERANCE
Bohemian National Hall (unless otherwise noted)
321 East 73rd St. between First & Second Aves.
May 26 – June 15, free – $15
rehearsalfortruth.org

Founded in 2017, Rehearsal for Truth is an annual festival that honors the legacy of Czech playwright, dissident, and president Václav Havel. Presented by the Václav Havel Center and the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association, This year’s iteration features theater, opera, music, poetry, and more from Czechia, Bulgaria, Belarus, Romania, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and other nations.

“Rehearsal for Truth is a rare opportunity to hear artistic voices from Central and Eastern Europe,” festival artistic director Edward Einhorn explained in a statement. “The theme of the 2025 edition is Perseverance. The worldwide turn towards autocracy and war is both current and historically familiar for the artists from this region, and their responses have a deep resonance now for Americans, as we experience our own crises. My hope is that the work presented in the festival can connect our experiences and help us guide us as we all try to persevere through difficult times.”

The centerpiece is the US premiere of Blood, Sweat, and Queers, a seventy-five-minute piece about intersex Czech track star Zdenek Koubek (1913–86) and fascism, coproduced by Einhorn’s Untitled Theater Company No. 61. Other highlights include Belarus Free Theatre’s King Stakh’s Wild Hunt, Alexander Manuiloff’s interactive The Decision, and an evening of music and poetry with Marketa Foukalova, Jan Zábrana, and Martin Brunner.

Havel (1936–2011) wrote such plays as The Garden Party and The Memorandum and such books as Living in Truth and Toward a Civil Society; he also wrote and directed the 2011 film Leaving. In a 1968 letter to Alexander Dubček, the first secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Havel explained, “Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance,” words to live by in today’s international maelstrom.

Tickets for most events are free (with a suggested donation of $10-$15) and require advance RSVP. Below is the full schedule.

Hura Collective’s Erben: Vlasy is part of Rehearsal for Truth festival honoring Václav Havel

Monday, May 26
through
Sunday, June 15
Blood, Sweat, and Queers, coproduced by Untitled Theater Company No. 61, by Tomas Dianiška, translated by Edward Einhorn and Katarina Vizina, directed by Edward Einhorn, starring Craig Anderson, Herschel Blatt, Jean Marie Keevins, Alyssa Simon, Katarina Vizina, and Hennessy Winkler, followed by a talk with Chris Harwood on May 26 and Michael Waters on May 30, $10-$20

Tuesday, May 27
Marketa Foukalova, featuring vocalist Markéta Foukalová, with poems by Jan Zábrana and music by Martin Brunner, followed by a discussion with Chris Harwood, free ($15 suggested donation), 7:00

Thursday, May 29
The Decision, interactive theater created by Alexander Manuiloff, directed by Irina Kruzhilina, Bohemian National Hall, followed by a discussion with the author, free ($15 suggested donation), 7:00

Sunday, June 1
King Stakh’s Wild Hunt, by Belarus Free Theatre, from the book by Uladzimir Karatkievich, adapted by Nicolai Khalezin, with music by Olga Podgaiskaya, directed by Natalia Kaliada, free ($10 suggested donation), 2:00

Connection, solo livestream from Salzburg, created and performed by Maryna Yakubovich, followed by a discussion and reception, free ($15 suggested donation), 5:00 – 9:30

Wednesday, June 4
The Pit, written by Matei Visneic, directed by Ana Margineanu, starring Owen Campbell, Vas Eli, and Perri Yaniv, followed by a discussion with the artists, free ($15 suggested donation), 7:00

Friday, June 6
Staged Reading: Show Trial, about Czech politician and resistance leader Milada Horáková, written by Laura Zlatos, directed by Tom Costello, followed by a discussion with the author, $15, 7:00

Saturday, June 7
Furiozo: Man Looking for Trouble, created by Piotr Sikora, followed by a reception with the artist, free ($15 suggested donation), 7:00

Sunday, June 8
Erben: Vlasy, by Hura Collective, with direction, set, puppets, and music by Hza Bažant, starring Hza Bažant and Leona Bažant Telínová, followed by a demonstration of puppetry techniques and history, free ($15 suggested donation), 5:00 & 7:00

Stella Abel will perform Psyche June 12 & 13, in English then Hungarian

Wednesday, June 11
The Amateurs, written by Lenka Garajová, directed by Šimon Ferstl, starring Šimon Ferstl, Jakub Jablonský, Lenka Libjaková, Martin ISO Krajčír, Kriss Krimm, and Tomáš Pokorný, followed by a discussion with the artists, free ($15 suggested donation), 7:00

Thursday, June 12, in English, 7:00 & 9:00
and
Friday, June 13, in Hungarian, 7:00
Psyché: Writings of an Erstwhile Poetess, from poems by Sándor Weöres, translated by David Cseh, directed by Mark Tarnoki, performed by Stella Abel, the Hungarian House, 213 East 82nd St., free (donations encouraged)

Friday, June 13
Kafka’s Ape, adapted by Phala Ookeditse, performed by Tony Miyambo, Bohemian National Hall, followed by a discussion with the artists, free ($15 suggested donation), 7:00

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

A WILD[E] SALOME FROM HEARTBEAT OPERA

Heartbeat Opera’s English-language Salome continues at the Space at Irondale through February 16 (photo by Russ Rowland)

SALOME
The Space at Irondale
85 South Oxford St., Brooklyn
February 4-16, $21.79-$114.25
www.heartbeatopera.org/salome

“When it premiered, it was extremely shocking to its audiences because it was dangerous and there were so many taboos that get broken in it,” co-adaptor and director Elizabeth Dinkova says about Richard Strauss’s Salome, which Heartbeat Opera is presenting this month in a rare English-language version at the Space at Irondale. In the promotional video, she continues, “There are a few core mysteries at the center of this piece around what it means to be in love, and the great terror and violence that erupts when you’re not.”

Oscar Wilde’s 1891 play about the first-century Jewish princess who was the daughter of Herodias and stepdaughter of Herod II was translated into German by Hedwig Lachmann and became the libretto for Strauss’s opera, which debuted in Dresden in 1905. Tom Hammond translated the work into English in the late 1980s for the English National Opera, and now Dinkova and co-adaptor, music director, and conductor Jacob Ashworth have collaborated on a new version for seven singers, eight clarinetists, and two percussionists. The cast features Summer Hassan as Salome, Patrick Cook as Herod, Nathaniel Sullivan as Jokanaan (John the Baptist), Manna K Jones as Herodias, David Morgans as Narraboth, Jaharis as Page Melina, and Jeremy Harr as a soldier; Francesca Federico will perform the title role on February 9.

Heartbeat has previously staged unique versions of such classics as Eugene Onegin, Tosca, and Fidelio as well as the original The Extinctionist. Up next is a one-hundred-minute retelling of Charles Gounod’s Faust at Baruch Performing Arts Center in May.

In the video, music arranger Dan Schlosberg explains, “This was a scandal, this piece; [Strauss] wrote it, and he knew that people were going to be scandalized.”

Heartbeat Opera attempts to bring back that sense of shock and scandal in its take on Salome, which promises, among other things, a “Dance of the Seven Veils” like you’ve never seen before.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]