Angolan tenor Nelson Ebo's upcoming role is one that hits particularly close to home. Next month in Heartbeat Opera's new adaptation of Beethoven's Fidelio (May 3-13), Ebo sings Stan - or Florestan, in the original libretto - the black activist who is wrongfully incarcerated.

Heartbeat Opera Co-Music Director Daniel Schlosberg is ready for the company's fourth annual Spring Festival, where he'll unveil his new arrangement of Mozart's Don Giovanni. The composer and pianist has taken on operatic classics in past seasons, experimenting with percussion with Lucia di Lammermoor and adding jazz into Carmen; for this Don Giovanni, directed by Heartbeat Opera Co-Artistic Director Louisa Proske, he gets creative with the clarinet.

As Heartbeat Opera gears up for its fourth annual Spring Festival, Artistic Director Ethan Heard is in rehearsals for his poignant adaptation of Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio (May 3-13). Heard has written new English dialogue with Marcus Scott to bring the story of political prisoners into 2018; Heartbeat Opera's production features a primarily black cast, and a true "Prisoners' Chorus" of incarcerated members of 6 prison choirs across the Midwest.