Name: Vanessa
Start: 2026-05-31T00:00:00
Location: Baruch College

Jacob Ashworth

R.B. Schlather

Williamstown Theatre Festival

Heartbeat Opera

Samuel Barber is one of the most celebrated American composers of the twentieth century, and VANESSA was a hit upon arrival at the Metropolitan Opera in 1958, subsequently winning the Pulitzer Prize in Music. It could have remained in the canon as one of the great American operas, but its unique brand of gothic creep and fiercely emotional music clashed with the overly-academic tastes of the time. Over the following decades, the piece receded into near-obscurity. Together with director R.B. Schlather, Heartbeat Opera strips away the gewgaws and doilies of its original imaginings, allowing the riveting extremes of these palpable characters to break through. This reinvention, adapted by Jacob Ashworth with a new arrangement by Dan Schlosberg, pares the work down to five singers, hopelessly trapped inside their own circumstances.