Faust (Heartbeat Opera)

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Heartbeat Opera artistic director Jacob Ashworth and director Sara Holdren are  into something thrillingly unorthodox. Drawing from the 1859 critical edition—which foregrounds the often-overlooked spoken dialogue—Heartbeat’s version transforms these passages into sharp, electrified exchanges that jolt the piece into the 21st century. What was once a sprawling, three-hour romantic opera is now a taut two-hour fever dream, culminating in a twist ending that upends expectations. This Faust doesn’t merely modernize Gounod’s classic—it detonates it, reassembling the shards into a darkly compelling new shape.

The company’s reimagining extends to the very heart of the music, with Francisco Ladrón de Guevara offering a striking re-orchestration of Gounod’s lush original score. Rather than simply preserving its romantic grandeur, Guevara strips it down and retools it, crafting a soundscape that feels both urgent and intimate. It’s a sonic transformation that mirrors the production’s aesthetic reinvention—familiar yet startlingly fresh.

We get evocative shadow screens, puppetry and a silent-film fantasia. Heartbeat Opera’s two-hour whirlwind adaptation has everything—except an intermission. True to the company’s bold, iconoclastic style, this fiercely distilled staging trades grand opera’s lush orchestra for a lean, expressive band led by artistic director and violinist Ashworth. Brass and reeds give the score grit and immediacy, while the unexpected addition of a harmonium injects a raw, streetwise character—part cabaret, part back-alley prayer. The result? A Faust not of gilded prosceniums, but of shadows, sweat, and sharply focused vision.

As ever, Faust begins in isolation: the doctor hunched at his desk, drowning in existential dread. But this isn’t the dusty study of tradition—it’s sleek, modern, and starkly relatable. A contemporary desk anchors us in the now, and when Valentin, Wagner, and Siebel stagger into view through a haze of neon in a seedy, back-alley bar, the world of Heartbeat Opera’s Faust feels unmistakably present.

Yet this production also hovers in the eerie space between now and forever. What exactly is Faust brewing in that ominous blender—opioid, poison, metaphor? And where are Valentin and Wagner headed in uniform—what conflict? The shadow of Ukraine flickers briefly, unspoken but palpable. Then there’s Mephistopheles, all in crimson, striding in like a specter from some undefined era or dimension—equal parts cabaret demon and eternal trickster. The genius of this Faust lies in how it resists being pinned to any one time. Its moral and metaphysical tremors feel universal. After all, devils are never out of fashion.

Tenor Orson Van Gay II and baritone Alex DeSocio bring vocal heft and dramatic clarity to their roles as Faust and Valentin, respectively. Van Gay tackles the moral murkiness of Faust with finesse—a romantic lead who is equal parts seducer, deserter, and self-absorbed seeker. It’s no easy feat to make such a fragmented character compelling, yet Van Gay threads the needle. He sets the tone for the opera with a well thought out “Rien! En vain j’interroge” and if it’s even possible to win us over further, his “Salut! Demeure chaste et pure” is painfully beautiful. His tone is warm and rounded, lending unexpected brightness and lift to his upper register, which pierces through the ensemble with sudden, emotional force.

As Valentin, DeSocio offers a grounded counterpoint, his baritone steady and noble, laced with the quiet anguish of a man heading toward sacrifice. His rendition of “Avant de quitter ces lieux” in the first act leaves us utterly breathless.

John Taylor Ward steals scenes as Mephistopheles—a slithering, soft-voiced devil whose eerie magnetism is all the more potent for its understatement. Dressed in Western fringe at one point makes one think of the equally sexy and mysterious Orville Peck in his masked pseudo-Lone Ranger alter ego. Ward moves like a specter, often lurking in the margins, his presence felt even when silent. Similarly understated is soprano Rachel Kobernick’s Marguerite. When we first meet her, the voice is nearly a whisper—delicate, almost shy—but this restraint makes her eventual outpourings of emotion hit with devastating impact. Her quietude is not fragility, but tension held in reserve, released with haunting beauty when the moment demands it.

Stunning mezzo Eliza Bonet as Martha seizes the spotlight with a dazzling blend of vocal firepower and larger-than-life comic flair. Her performance is as bold as her voice is resonant.  She seems to relish every moment on stage, making it very easy to imagine what a glorious Carmen she would be. Sadly we see so little of the charismatic and sharply funny Brandon Bell, whose Wagner never returns from the front lines alongside Valentin. His brief appearance leaves a lasting impression, making his absence felt all the more.

As Siebel—reimagined here as a woman rather than the traditional pants role—AddieRose Brown brings a quiet, aching sincerity. Her rendition of “Faites-lui mes aveux” hushed the room, her voice delicate yet full of yearning. It’s one of several gorgeously delivered arias that draw the audience deep into the production’s moody, metamorphic world. The set, a shape-shifting marvel by Yichen Zhou and Forest Entsminger, enhances the intimacy, shifting in tandem with the emotional currents of the score. Zhou’s complementary lighting design and Elivia Bovenzi Blitz’s inventive costumes further support Holdren’s enthralling vision. Together, the design and performances conjure a world both theatrical and deeply human.

One of the production’s most inventive pleasures lies in director Holdren’s clever integration of the puppetry design of Nick Lehane, brought to life by the deft hands of puppeteers Rowan Magee and Emma Wiseman. These two virtuoso puppeteers conjure a host of visual delights—objects that levitate at Mephistopheles’s whim, surreal spectacles that collapse the boundary between magic and menace. Among the standout moments is a brilliantly absurd Punch-and-Judy-style puppet interlude that parodies Faust’s seduction of Marguerite with biting humor and eerie precision, reducing his romantic pursuit to a darkly comic marionette show.

Shadow play is employed with equal finesse. In one striking sequence, Faust and Marguerite, physically separated on stage, appear as looming silhouettes slowly drifting toward one another in profile, their bodies inching closer until shadow meets shadow in a kiss. These theatrical flourishes aren’t mere ornament—they echo the opera’s themes of illusion, manipulation, and desire, giving the production a poetic visual language all its own.

In this reimagining of Gounod’s Faust, the core narrative remains largely intact—until the final curtain. Where once Marguerite was swept heavenward in operatic absolution, here she is granted something far rarer: earthly liberation. Freed from both Faust’s self-serving desire and Mephistopheles’ manipulations, she steps into a future of quiet resilience, preparing to raise her child in a serene domestic haven alongside Martha and a reimagined Siebel—now a fully realized female character rather than a traditional trouser role.

It’s a triumphant revision, and a pointed one. In a production where nearly every male figure is a study in moral failure or self-absorption, it’s the women who emerge with dignity intact. Their quiet strength provides the moral backbone of the piece, offering not only an emotional counterpoint to the men’s ruinous pursuits, but a vision of hope that feels both radical and deeply earned.

Faust (through May 25, 2025)

Heartbeat Opera

Baruch Performing Arts Center, 55 Lexington Avenue, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.heartbeatopera.org/faust

Running time: two hours without an intermission