Williamstown, MA — New York’s Heartbeat Opera—the indie company whose daring, stripped down takes of classic operas have been called “a radical endeavor” by The New Yorker and “revelatory” by The Los Angeles Times—presents a new adaptation of Samuel Barber’s rarely mounted opera VANESSA at the Tony Award-winning Williamstown Theatre Festival (WTF), directed by the visionary R.B. Schlather. This marks the first-ever opera presented at WTF. Nine performances take place July 17–August 3, 2025. All reviews are embargoed until July 21 at 4:00PM.
THE ADAPTATION
In this thrilling reimagining of Vanessa, Heartbeat Opera’s Artistic Director Jacob Ashworth, together with “one of our more ambitious and effective younger directors” (The New York Times) R.B. Schlather, strip away showiness that was present in original productions, highlighting the palpable emotions of the characters. 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; it also won the Pulitzer Prize in Music. It should have remained in the canon as one of the great American operas of all time, but over the following decades the piece receded into near-obscurity. Ashworth asks, “Was it too sensationalist for the academic tastes of the time? Was the criticism that it was ‘uncategorizable’ just a veiled dig at its queer authors? Or is American opera simply doomed to second class citizenship in the operatic canon forever?” Heartbeat tackles the piece’s troubled reception history head on, questioning the piece in ways that previous revivals have not dared to. Paring the opera down to five singers and a tight, intermission-less 100 minutes, Heartbeat’s adaptation dives deep into the subtext of the atmospheric libretto to reveal the riveting extremes of the characters.
Vanessa is directed by the inventive opera director R.B. Schlather, known for his stunning work, immersive installations, and unconventional stagings. Schlather’s recent production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare at Hudson Hall in Hudson, NY received national acclaim for its community-fueled “locavore” essence, garnering both an in-depth preview story and a glowing review in The New York Times.
Of Vanessa, Schlather says: “I am struck by the cyclical quality of this work. These characters feel suspended in some kind of emotional isolation, replaying cycles over and over. They are dealing with existential ideas about who they are, what their destinies are, what to do with the material of their pasts, how to face their futures. They feel like people out of Greek Drama, completely tragic, pathetic, and poetic. I’m haunted by the atmosphere of the piece—eerie, stark, seductive, repressive, and also raw and brutal. It really pulls you in, gets under your skin. I’m particularly interested in what gets inherited, especially from woman to woman: trauma, silence, expectations. It’s not about the past, it’s about patterns. It exists out of time. That’s what elevates it for me to something mythic, tragic, monumental.”
WILLIAMSTOWN THEATRE FESTIVAL
This production of Vanessa marks the Williamstown Theatre Festival’s first-ever staging of an opera, and will inaugurate the festival’s new performance space, The Annex. Heartbeat spends eight weeks in Williamstown, rehearsing and collaborating with some of today’s most prominent names in contemporary theater to bring this exciting adaptation to life in a historic location that perfectly fits the aesthetic of Barber’s composition.
Jacob Ashworth says: “Williamstown felt like the perfect place to strip Vanessa down to the essential characters, be inches from the audience, go for some radical choices in the adaptation, and bring this absolute barnburner of an opera to a new audience. In this new space, with the audience on three sides, we envelop these characters, focusing a microscope on the actors themselves. These three women are trapped—by their choices, by the expectations put upon them, by their own loneliness and failure to connect. Vanessa is like a Hitchcock thriller, and in the intimate Annex, audiences will catch every slightest expression. A monumental score and larger-than-life emotions playing out so close you can almost touch it. That’s what we love about Heartbeat shows, and the Annex is a perfect venue for it.”
VANESSA
A brand new adaptation, sung in English.
100 minutes.
July 17 at 7pm
July 19 at 6:30pm
July 20 at 6:30pm
July 24 at 7pm
July 26 at 6:30pm
July 27 at 6:30pm
July 31 at 7pm
August 2 at 6:30pm
August 3 at 6:30pm
The Annex at Williamstown Theatre Festival
245 State Road in North Adams, MA
(inside the North Adams Gateway Center)
CAST
Vanessa Inna Dukach
Erika Ori Marcu
Anatol Roy Hage
Doctor Joshua Jeremiah
Baroness Mary Phillips
CREATIVE & PRODUCTION TEAM
Director R.B. Schlather
Music Directors Jacob Ashworth & Dan Schlosberg
Set Design R.B. Schlather
Costume Design Terese Wadden
Lighting Designer Yuki Nakase Link
Dramaturg Peregrine Heard
Production Stage Manager Brenna Comeau
Movement and Intimacy Director Skye Bronfenbrenner
Producer Shannon Sindelar
Associate Set Design Jiaying Erica Zhang
Asst Music Director/Orch Manager Jake Eisner
Copyist Harry Collins
Supertitles Nicholas Betson
Repetiteur Husan Chun-Novak
BAND
Conductor Dan Schlosberg (July 17, 19, 20, 31)
Conductor Jacob Ashworth (July 24, 26, 27, Aug 2, 3)
Violin Johnna Wu
Cello Thapelo Masita
Clarinet Louis Arques
Trumpet Rebecca Steinberg
Trombone Sam George
Harp Adam Phan
Piano Eliot Goldmund