Review: Beethoven remade as Black Lives Matter music at the Broad Stage

Curtis Bannister as Stan, an unjustly imprisoned Black activist, in Heartbeat Opera’s production of Beethoven’s “Fidelio” at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica on Sunday. In a production that came to the Broad Stage in Santa Monica over the weekend, New York City’s feisty Heartbeat Opera readily transformed the original 19th century Spanish prison setting of “Fidelio” to a contemporary American prison. Video of inmates singing projected in the Heartbeat Opera production of Beethoven’s “Fidelio,” while Kelly Griffin looks on, at the Broad Stage on Sunday. And yet another new look at “Fidelio” is around the corner, when Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic mount Beethoven’s opera next month with Deaf West Theatre.