REVIEW: Heartbeat Opera Breaths Vitality Into Manon!
January 29, 2026
The New York Times has described Heartbeat Opera as '“feisty” and “scrappy.” Those characteristics are exactly what an opera company needs in an age when the Metropolitan Opera — the opposite of scrappy and decidedly un-feisty — hemorrhages money and struggles to put butts in seats. Heartbeat Opera is New York’s downtown alternative to the Met, founded in 2014 by Yale alums Ethan Heard and Louisa Proske, and known for clever, outrageous rethinks of classic operas — Purcell’s The Fairy Queen in drag, Beethoven’s Fidelio adapted to Black Lives Matter activism and featuring actual prison choirs, Strauss’s Salome re-orchestrated for clarinet choir.
Jules Massenet’s comic opera Manon is the latest work to be given the Heartbeat treatment, and it’s a triumph. Jacob Ashworth and Rory Pelsue’s new English language adaptation, smartly trimmed to a single-act 100 minutes, and staged by Pelsue in the cavernous black-box Space at Irondale in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, Heartbeat’s Manon! not only adds a winking exclamation point, but breaths contemporary vitality into Massenet’s romantic tragedy.
Emma Grimsley in Heartbeat Opera’s Manon! (Photo by Andrew Boyle).
The nucleus of this production, as with many of Heartbeat’s productions, is tireless Music Director Dan Schlosberg’s newly economic orchestration. Schlosberg has reimagined Massenet’s sweeping score, a tapestry of richly overlapping melody, for an octet conducted vivaciously from a keyboard. A larger string section would certainly not be unwelcome, yet Schlosberg manages to wring plenty of syrup and drama from one violin (the impressive Julia Danitz), cello, bass, three winds, and harp.
Pelsue’s production captures the audience’s attention, and navigates the psychology of the story with gripping focus. The plot is well-trod (it’s La Traviata, Pretty Woman, Moulin Rouge), but Pelsue’s top-notch cast walks a fine line between sincerity and satire with well-directed skill.
Kathryn McCreary, Glenn Seven Allen, Jamari Darling, and Natalie Walker (clockwise from left) in Heartbeat Opera’s Manon! (Photo by Andrew Boyle).
Especially winning is Emma Grimsley, as the eager-to-experience-life Manon. Grimsley demonstrated a rare ability to act through coloratura. Her buoyant, agile instrument scintillated, and she delivered the English text clearly and effortlessly. “Adieu, notre petite table,” that warhorse aria, puts the ‘opera’ in ‘soap opera:’ silly on its face, especially when translated to English (“Goodbye, our favorite little table”), but tapping into genuine human emotion.
Tenor Matt Dengler brought warmth and inner turmoil to his role as Manon’s first love the Chevalier Des Grieux. He soared in his signature aria "En fermant les yeux” (“When I close my eyes”), which sounded like it could have been written yesterday in Schlosberg’s fresh arrangement.
Glenn Seven Allen was wry and subtly predatory as Guillot, and Jamari Darling was beguiling and funny as Lescaut. Justin Lee Miller, as the Count Des Grieux, sang with a splendidly commanding baritone.
Emma Grimsley and Matt Dengler in Heartbeat Opera’s Manon! (Photo by Andrew Boyle).
The strength of the cast was elevated by tastefully on-point costumes by David Mitsch and charming choreography by Sara Gettelfinger. The delicious Gavotte (“Obéissons quand leur voix appelle”) became a joyously danced manifesto (“Let me live life only for today / for we know youth is not so far from death”), and as irresistible as any earworm in a Lloyd Webber musical.
Natalie Walker, Jamari Darling, and Kathryn McCreary (L to R) in Heartbeat Opera’s Manon! (Photo by Andrew Boyle).
Massenet’s melodramatic score is ripe for this infusion of contemporary musical theater sensibilities. After all, this is where the roots of modern favorites lie. It’s giving Les Misérables. It’s giving Bridgerton.
The production has announced an extension, a salve and respite from this uncommonly chilly and unhappy winter. But, I hope something more game-changing is at play, as well. Heartbeat Opera’s approach should be a template for others going forward — an approach that harvests and honors great works of the musical stage, and brings them to today’s audiences where they’re at. Inspiring, entertaining, and sustainable.
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Heartbeat Opera’s Manon!
