photos by Russ Rowland, Jill Steinberg, and Tyler First

OPERA NEWS
by Joanne Sydney Lessner

"Jamilyn Manning-White owned the night, delivering a vibrantly sung and masterfully acted Lucia. She executed the vocal demands brilliantly, including several spot-on high E-flats held for longer than seemed humanly possible. But it was her physical freedom, unpredictability, and specificity of reactions that made her performance so riveting. Marrying the patient’s mental illness to Lucia’s impulsiveness, Manning-White began her performance just slightly unhinged, building to a superb mad scene that received a justifiably long ovation."

Lucia di Lammermoor
by Gaetano Donizetti and Salvadore Cammarano

produced by Heartbeat Opera
March 2016

"... casts a different light on the heroine's madness while presenting the artform itself as a means of salvation." - Opera News

"ingenious ... a knockout Lucia" - Wall Street Journal

"a radical endeavor" - The New Yorker

"ingeniously convincing" - Opera Magazine

"Louisa Proske’s smart direction offers cause for celebration" - ParterreBox

This radical and intimate new vision pares Donizetti's masterpiece down to ninety minutes, six singers, and five instrumentalists. The production features a new arrangement of the score for piano, cello, clarinet, guitar, and percussion. In this adaptation, opera is synonymous with the unquenchable desire for a life that will not be contained. Lucia’s tale of daring and passion bursts forth from the heart and brain of a nameless asylum inmate and shatters the silence of her captivity.

Directed and Adapted by Louisa Proske
Arranged and Music Directed by Daniel Schlosberg
Choreographed by Chloe Treat 

Designs by Reid Thompson, Beth Goldenberg, and Oliver Wason

Cast: David Guzman, Christopher S. Lilley, Jamilyn Manning-White, Matthew Singer, Monica Soto-Gil, John Taylor Ward