Adapted with new English translation

BY Jacob Ashworth and Rory Pelsue

 

New orchestrations 

BY Dan Schlosberg

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Music BY Jules Massenet
Original libretto BY Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille

Director: Rory Pelsue
Scenic design: Alexander Woodward
Costume design: David Mitsch
Lighting design: Yichen Zhou
Choreography: Sara Gettelfinger
Sound design: Ryan Gamblin
Props design: Madisen Frazier
Dramaturgy: Peregrine Teng Heard

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Cast:

Jamari Darling, Matt Dengler, Emma Grimsley,

Kathryn McCreary, Justin Lee Miller,

Glenn Seven Allen, Natalie Walker

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Band:

Deanna Cirielli, Julia Danitz, Nicolee Kuester,

Atao Liu, Thapelo Masita, Pablo O’Connell,

Eleonore Oppenheim, Dan Schlosberg

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press HIGHLIGHTS:

The English translation by artistic director Jacob Ashworth and stage director Rory Pelsue was loose and colloquial, sometimes rhyming, sometimes not, and sat well on the vocal line… Pelsue’s direction used minimalism to increase emotional connection and dramatic propulsion aided by the reduced playing time with no intermission, the spare scenery and very intimate acting.

-Eli Jacboson, Parterre Box

 

In Rory Pelsue’s inspired staging, Manon is less a heroine than a specimen under glass—rarely absent, perpetually observed, her presence a kind of social experiment in desire. The production places her, almost cruelly, in the center of our gaze, as if to ask not who she is, but what we make of her… Manon! exploits its vertical playground with a canny theatrical intelligence, treating the venue not as a neutral container but as an active partner in the storytelling. The height and openness of the space, along with its promiscuous sightlines, are folded into the dramaturgy. Action spills beyond the runway-like thrust, and the upper balcony is conscripted into service as an aerial demimonde—a gallery from which the opera’s traffic in desire, money, and attention may be coolly observed. One has the sense of a society always watching itself watch. The production declares its visual grammar from the first tableau… The production holds up a mirror not just to 18th-century Paris but to our own marketplace of longing...the opera’s cautionary tale begins to look less like a period romance than a dispatch from the attention economy.

-Tony Marinelli, Theaterscene.net

 

Heartbeat Opera proves that you don’t need a Lincoln Center budget to mount vital, magnificently performed opera that speaks to us in 2026.

-Zachary Stewart, Theatermania

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MANON! was fantastic, moving, beautiful, and so well staged. It was perhaps one of my favorite stagings and performances of an opera I’d seen in a long while, and it was truly an intelligent and worthwhile adaptation… What struck me about this production was how well acted it was. Opera is largely a music-first art form, but by treating this as a musical theatre piece, the singers were able to lean into the acting to enhance the drama of the music.

-Phillip Gardener, Oberon’s Glade

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Heartbeat Opera is offering a striking new Manon, cut and shaped into a taut hundred minutes, restoring much of the original wit and allowing it to sharpen—rather than soften—the opera’s tragic ending…Directed by Pelsue with meticulous attention to detail and an unerring sense of pace, the production is terrific from start to finish...The hundred minutes fly by as chandeliers rise and fall, dividing the scenes. Every aspect of the production is carefully tended. It moves at exactly the right pace across a catwalk stage whose reflective floor makes the action shimmer and sparkle…The runway is not just visually arresting; it is dramaturgically astute…Manon is onstage most of the time. She has no private life. In this modern operatic world, Manon becomes a kind of product, displayed and evaluated for the highest bidder.

-Susan Hall, Berkshire Fine Arts

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This condensed and rearranged version has the narrative drive of a modern Broadway musical, reflective of the energy and intricate timing of Massenet’s original. The English translation served the original with grace, with snappy dialogue (spoken and sung) and expressive arias that landed like modern ballads.

-Susan Brodie, Classical Voice America

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