Vanessa, an opera from Heartbeat Opera

Get ready for a captivating opera experience with Vanessa, brought to you by the innovative Heartbeat Opera team. Those who purchase tickets to this special YACOL event will be treated to a Q&A before the show, from 6:30-7:30pm, with Yalies Jacob Ashworth and Dan Schlosberg.

This is a brand-new 100-minute adaptation, sung in English.

Composed by Samuel Barber
Libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti
Adapted by Jacob Ashworth
Newly Arranged by Dan Schlosberg
Directed by R.B. Schlather
Music Directed by Jacob Ashworth

Overview:

Direct from the legendary Williamstown Theatre Festival—where it was praised as “top among” the festival’s “jewels” by The New York Times and named BEST OF 2025 by The Washington Post—Heartbeat Opera’s searing new adaptation of VANESSA makes its much-anticipated NYC premiere.

In Samuel Barber and Gian Carlo Menotti’s Pulitzer Prize-winning opera, Vanessa waits, along with her niece Erika and her mother the Baroness, in her shadowy estate for the arrival of her long-lost lover. When their visitor appears—though not as they expect—he launches the family into psychological turmoil, sends Erika spiraling, and unleashes a reckoning of desire, illusion, and longing. Under the acclaimed direction of R.B. Schlather, VANESSA is “pared to its stark, chilling core” with Heartbeat Opera’s signature “laser-like approach” (Classical Voice North America). Dan Schlosberg’s “revelatory” (Seen and Heard International) and “meticulously distilled” (The Washington Post) new arrangement rekindles one of opera's greatest scores with a band of seven virtuosic instrumentalists, and Jacob Ashworth’s adaptation strips the story to five dynamic singers and “100 enthralling minutes” (The New York Times).

“★★★★★. VANESSA grabs the audience like a vise. Unforgettable, truly.” (New York Stage Review)

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