Ethan Heard

FIDELIO

Heartbeat Opera’s

FIDELIO

Premiered at Baruch Performing Arts Center, May 2018
Remounted in February 2022 and performed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mondavi Center at UC Davis, Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, and The Broad Stage

Music by Ludwig van Beethoven
Original libretto by Joseph Sonnleithner & Georg Friedrich Sonnleithner
Adapted & Directed by Ethan Heard
Arranged & Music Directed by Daniel Schlosberg
New English Dialogue Co-Written by Marcus Scott & Ethan Heard

2018 CAST: Derrell Acon (Roc), Malorie Casimir (Marcy), Nelson Ebo (Stan), Kelly Griffin (Leah/Lee), Daniel Klein (Pizzaro)
2022 CAST: Derrell Acon (Roc), Curtis Bannister (Stan), Kelly Griffin (Leah/Lee), Victoria Lawal (Marcy), Corey McKern (Pizzaro)

Also featuring the voices of more than 100 incarcerated singers and 70 volunteers from six prison choirs: Oakdale Community Choir, KUJI Men’s Chorus, UBUNTU Men’s Chorus, HOPE Thru Harmony Women’s Choir, East Hill Singers, and Voices of Hope

2018 PRODUCTION: Emma Jaster (Movement Direction), Reid Thompson (Set), Valérie Thérèse Bart (Costumes), Oliver Wason (Lights), Jon Carter (Hair & Make Up), Kate Marvin (Sound), Nicholas Hussong, Joey Moro, Paul Lieber (Projections), Jakob Plummer (Stage Manager), Jillian Carucci (Assistant Director), Michelle Jones (Carceral Expert), Nicholas Betson (Supertitles & Translation)

2022 PRODUCTION: Nigel Semaj (Movement & Fight Direction), Reid Thompson (Set), Valérie Thérèse Bart & Kara Branch (Costumes), Oliver Wason (Lighting), Kate Marvin (Sound), Caite Hevner (Projections), Dustin Z West (Stage Manager), Shadi Ghaheri (Associate Director), Rob Signom (Production Manager), Nyle Farmer (Associate Lighting Designer), Lucy Guillemette (Assistant Stage Manager), Nate Krogel (Audio Engineer), Rhys Roffey (Props & Wardrobe), David S. Harewood (Company Manager)

Photos by Russ Rowland

Press

Listen to the NPR story on Heartbeat’s Fidelio here.

"Urgent, powerful, and poignant. I nearly missed Heartbeat Opera’s “Fidelio” — reorchestrated, reduced and reimagined for the era of Black Lives Matter — and I’m so glad I didn’t."

—Joshua Barone, The New York Times

"Imaginative, vital, and heartbreaking. I saw “Fidelio,” and was blindsided by its impact. Leading the cast were Nelson Ebo, grittily affecting as Stan, and Kelly Griffin, giving a confident, full-voiced performance as Leah. But the heartbreaking centerpiece of the production was the chorus “O welche Lust,” in which the prisoners are allowed to leave their cells."

—Alex Ross, The New Yorker

"Imaginatively deconstructed and reconceived. Thoughtfully adapted and directed. [An] ingenious seven-player arrangement ... [with] artful transitions. The most powerful scene was the prisoners’ chorus, which was performed by 100 incarcerated men and women and 70 volunteers from six prison choirs. They were seen on pre-recorded video as well as heard, and their amateur but committed music-making brought real life into the theater."

—Heidi Waleson, The Wall Street Journal 

"Fearless work that was somehow true to the original yet very current. More successful than the opera's most recent revival at the Met."

—Broadway World

"Stunning, moving, and critically important. Truly brilliant."

—Bernard E. Harcourt, Prof. of Law & Political Science at Columbia University, Exec. Dir. of the Holder Initiative for Civil & Political Rights

DIRECTOR’s NOTE

Carved in stone above the entrance to the London Correctional Institution in Ohio are the words, “He who enters here leaves not hope behind.” Inside, on Tuesday mornings, the Ubuntu Men’s Chorus rehearses. One of the singers has a portrait of Bach tattooed on his forearm. At the invitation of the choir’s conductor Cathy Roma, Dan and I visited rehearsal on March 21. 

The Ubuntu Men’s Chorus is one of six prison choirs that are participating in this production. Overall, more than 100 “inside” (incarcerated) singers and 80 “outside” singers (volunteers who visit the prisons) are raising their voices with us.

FIDELIO is about hope in the face of despair: in our adaptation, Leah’s husband Stan, a Black Lives Matter activist, has been wrongfully incarcerated by a corrupt warden, but Leah still fiercely hopes she can free him. It is about courage in the face of danger: Leah disguises herself as a correctional officer to infiltrate the facility where she believes Stan is being kept. And love in the face of hate: Leah’s love transcends the warden’s racism.   

We live in a time of great injustice. Violence against black bodies is an ongoing epidemic plaguing our society, and our prison system incarcerates many, many more people than it should. Did you know that the U.S. has 5% of the world’s population and 25% of its prisoners? The state of California alone has more prisoners than do France, the UK, Germany, Japan, Singapore, and the Netherlands combined. Shockingly, one in every three black male babies born in the U.S. in this century is expected to be incarcerated.

In the midst of great struggle, Beethoven’s music has the power to connect and uplift our spirits. FIDELIO expresses the yearning for freedom and redemption in us all. Experiencing this music and this story nourishes us in these dark times, reminding us of the beauty we, as human beings, are capable of.

In the Ubuntu Chorus rehearsal, Dan accompanied on keyboard, and I filmed. New t-shirts with the chorus logo had arrived, and the singers excitedly put them on over their uniforms. After I explained in more detail how the footage I was shooting would be used in the production, however, one singer nicknamed Frederick Douglass raised his hand, saying, “We should take off our t-shirts. We’ve got to represent all men in blue.”

This production is dedicated to the men and women behind bars for whom we are responsible, and for the activists who hope, leading us in the fight for justice.

-Ethan Heard 

Sources: Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform by John F. Pfaff, Let’s Get Free by Paul Butler