Heartbeat Opera Launches Third Season With Halloween Drag Extravaganza 'Queens of the Night', 10/31

After a sold-out September performance on The High Line, HEARTBEAT OPERA-the daring young company whose unconventional orchestrations and stagings of classic operas have been called "a radical endeavor" by Alex Ross in The New Yorker-launches its third season on October 31, 2016 at the new music venue National Sawdust with Heartbeat's Annual Benefit Drag Extravaganza, this year titled Queens of the Night: Mozart in Space. Two performances take place at 7:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m.

The creators of last season's Lucia di Lammermoor and Dido & Aeneas will be at the helm: Heartbeat Co-Artistic Directors Ethan Heard and Louisa Proske and Co-Music Directors Daniel Schlosberg and Jacob Ashworth. These four graduates of the Yale School of Drama and Yale School of Music will create an hour-long show combining Mozart's most beloved music, taking the audience on an adventure through the galaxy with their signature blend of eye-popping spectacle, gender-bending mischief, and musical mastery.

Each year's Drag Extravaganza celebrates a different composer (previous shows were Miss Handel and Purcell's The Fairy Queen). This year's Halloween-opera-party features Mozart favorites from The Magic Flute, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, and more, performed by rising stars John Taylor Ward (John Eliot Gardiner's international Monteverdi tour), Jamilyn Manning-White (Heartbeat's Lucia, "a knockout Lucia" - WSJ), Kristin Gornstein ("rich-voiced mezzo-soprano" - NYT), dancer/choreographer Emma Jaster, lip-syncing divas Taurean Everett (Little Shop of Horrors) and James Cusati-Moyer(Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), and more.

Heartbeat's resident band Cantata Profana, called "admirably varied and indefinable" by Zachary Woolfe in The New York Times, is comprised of Jacob Ashworth, violin; Daniel Schlosberg, keyboard and harpsichord; Michaël Attias, horns; Melanie Clapiès, violin; Andrew Yee, cello; Samuel Suggs, bass.

The set is designed by Reid Thompson, costumes are by Miodrag Guberinic(Madonna's Rebel Heart Tour) and Jon Carter (Broadway's King & I), hair and makeup are by Jon Carter, lighting is by Oliver Wason. Makeup is provided by MAC cosmetics.

Audiences can expect drinks, raffle prizes, a costume contest, and outrageous encounters with aliens, astronauts, and the cosmic Queen of the Night.

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In May 2017 at Baruch Performing Arts Center, Heartbeat Opera's third season will culminate in two full productions: CARMEN, directed and adapted by Louisa Proske, arranged and music directed by Daniel Schlosberg; and MADAMA BUTTERFLY, directed and adapted by Ethan Heard, arranged by Daniel Schlosberg, music directed by Jacob Ashworth.

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