The Metropolitan Opera is making good on its promise to present more contemporary work. Whether or not this will do what, in another context, Peter Gelb, hopes it will do, i.e: “put asses in the seats”, remains to be seen. Works by Terence Blanchard, Matthew Aucoin and Kevin Puts have been presented recently. This season, a third of the repertoire is contemporary. This season opened with Jake Heggie and Terrence McNalley’s masterful, gut wrenching tale of rage and redemption, Dead Man Walking. Now 23 years old and based on the memoirs of Sister Helen Prejean, it has been heard all over the world; indeed it is the most widely played opera by a contemporary American composer.
The opera’s central issues – the death penalty, forgiveness, redemption – are presented without any coating. The horrendous opening scene is a rape and murder of two teenagers by a pair of brothers. We then meet Sister Helen, who works with children in a housing project and also acts as a penpal to inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, one of whom, Joseph De Rocher, is one of the perpetrators of the opening scene's violence. Now on Death Row, his execution date nears and he asks to meet her in person. She drives the arduous three hours to meet him. He is unrepentant and continues to deny responsibility for the crime. Sister Helen pleads with him to acknowledge his crime and seek forgiveness. He continues to lie until near the very end, when he finally faces what he’s done. When he does, he follows it with a shriek of pain and self-loathing. Sister Helen promises to be near when he is executed “so he can see the face of love”.
Heggie’s score has no thorns. Familiar American musical forms – jazz, gospel, rock – are melded to form a type of cinematic overview; it may not be unique but it draws in the audience. At times it could use more edges – more dissonances – than Heggie’s echt-American, Bernstein and Copland-based sensibilities allow, but it’s hard to quibble. McNally’s text, steeped in the everyday lingo of the Deep South, rings absolutely true and is eminently singable, frequently profane.
There’s no dearth of fine roles. Joyce DiDonato, whom many would call opera's finest singing actor, is a remarkable Sister Helen. Apprehensive, timid and secure at once, wide-eyed when she enters the prison. She stands up to both the prison Chaplain and the Warden without ever letting go of her reserve and dignity. The warmth of the lower part of DiDonato’s voice is used to fine effect, especially when comforting her special prisoner, and the slightly wiry tone at the top adds urgency.
Joseph, whose growth as a human being is, more or less, at the opera’s center, is a star turn for Ryan McKinny, who delivers his lines with a broad, vibrant baritone and impeccable diction. It is clipped and arrogant at the start, more smooth as he starts to heed Sister Helen and his coatings of defensiveness and fury dissipate. He and DiDonato have wrenching monologues, beautifully written and performed.
Susan Graham nearly steals the show as de Rocher’s mother, miserable and almost disoriented by the horror she must face. A beautiful turn comes from the always wonderful Latonia Moore as Sister Rose, a fellow nun, who warns, counsels and comforts Sister Helen, a stunning lyrical duet in Act 2 came as an oasis. Chad Shelton, the prison Chaplain, presents a nasty picture to Helen, devoid of hope. “I don’t like him,” she tells Raymond Aceto's concerned Warden. “Neither do I,” he responds.
Not enough can be said about Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s leadership. He has become a Met superstar in record time and it’s easy to understand why: he loves what he conducts, is considerate of the singers, he paces for drama and musicality and the orchestra plays passionately. Director Ivo von Hove, using film, as is his wont, is far more successful with it than with Broadway’s awful West Side Story a few years ago. The rape/murder is filmed, as is Sister Helen’s long drive to the prison. But when the prison fight breaks out, he has cameramen on stage filming it – the whole is a scary riot, the close-ups unclear, drawing attention away from the stage picture. Where should the audience look? It is used to magnificent advantage elsewhere in a split-screen scene of de Rocher’s monolog with Sister Helen sleeping an uneasy sleep.
All of this takes place in an unadorned box with Jan Versweyveld’s garish lighting, without accoutrements – no cells, no bars, no handcuffs. The execution itself, with de Rocher on a gurney, first being strapped in, then having the poison injected, close-up, in his arm, is clearly seen from above, becoming more and more riveting and more and more hateful until it is over.
