Why does “Dead Man Walking” stand as the most celebrated American opera of the 21st century?
Not simply because it examines a story already made famous by Sister Helen Prejean’s best-selling 1993 book and director Tim Robbins’ 1995 film of the same name.
No, that notoriety alone could not have afforded the work hundreds of performances around the world since it was first staged by San Francisco Opera in 2000. Far more important, Jake Heggie’s evocative score and Terrence McNally’s illuminating libretto take us deep into a tragic story in ways that neither a book nor a film can.
When a man on Death Row sings of his fears and sorrows, when the nun who tries to comfort him struggles with her faith via song, we aren’t simply witnessing what they’re experiencing – we’re feeling it and living it, through music.
So it was on Saturday night, when Lyric Opera presented its first staging of “Dead Man Walking,” which explores guilt, hate, forgiveness and hope in eyes-wide-open terms.
By now Prejean’s true story is well known: After corresponding with a convicted murderer, she visited him on Death Row and ultimately became his spiritual adviser – up until he was executed by the state of Louisiana. The unlikely bond the two forged, and the pain they suffered alongside the two victims’ loved ones, forms the spine of the opera.
For this two-act work offers little in the way of plot: Convicted murderer Joseph De Rocher (a pseudonym) proceeds inexorably to his demise. Heggie and McNally, however, are probing more crucial matters: a killer’s motivations, a nun’s severely tested faith, four parents’ lust for vengeance and one parent’s pleas for mercy. Above all, the opera contemplates crime, punishment and redemption, with no easy answers offered.
Lest all this sound a bit rarefied, “Dead Man Walking” makes the events shatteringly real from the outset, as we see two teenage lovers attacked by the De Rocher brothers, the young woman raped and stabbed, the young man shot. This opening sequence, though difficult to watch, immediately establishes the stakes involved in the most visceral terms possible.
From this point forth, “Dead Man Walking” shows Prejean sucked into an emotional vortex she did not anticipate. With each visit to Joseph De Rocher, she tries to find some trace of humanity in him as he awaits death (his brother received a life sentence). At the same time, she relentlessly presses him to confess – as his only hope of spiritual salvation.
Heggie’s score tells the tale more eloquently than words could, the slashing orchestral accompaniment that accompanies the crime followed by the spiritual strains of “He Will Gather Us Around,” sung by soprano Patricia Racette as Prejean. The sheer juxtaposition of these two extremes cues the viewer that “Dead Man Walking” will be investigating a vast breadth of human endeavor, from the evil to the sublime.
When De Rocher sings of “A Warm Night,” articulating his aspirations for peace and beauty, we realize that notwithstanding his heinous acts, he too feels and dreams and hopes. Even a murderer may have a bit of humanity left, the opera seems to be saying. Or, as Prejean puts it, De Rocher remains a child of God.
The most devastating musical sequence occurs toward the end of the first act, when all four grieving parents, plus De Rocher’s mother and Prejean, sing “You Don’t Know What It’s Like.” In this stunning sextet, each character gives voice to psychic pain that can be articulated but not resolved. Thus for the course of several minutes, the listener experiences anguish that these characters will feel for the rest of their lives.
Heggie’s music reflects the story’s emotional contours in consistently poetic terms, his score built on long lines, mostly delicate orchestration and a musical language that’s accessible yet not simplistic. Samuel Barber’s neoromantic lyricism, George Gershwin’s harmonic colorings and Leonard Bernstein’s rhythmic agitations course through this work, which nonetheless sounds more original than derivative. In essence, Heggie’s score defines these characters via the same gentle spirit with which Prejean approached her Death Row correspondent. McNally’s libretto somehow manages to provide religious discourse while keeping the story pressing briskly forward, and the touches of humor that McNally wrote into the script bring welcome moments of respite.
This cast has two indelible performances. Bass-baritone Ryan McKinny, making his Lyric debut, proves at once menacing and charismatic as De Rocher; the hard surface McKinny shows at first meeting Prejean slowly cracking over time, an acting tour de force buttressed by a warmly inviting voice. Mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, who played Prejean in the original San Francisco production, here brings both pathos and dignity to the role of De Rocher’s mother, a woman whose love for her son prevents her from confronting the truth of his crime; in so doing, Graham, who sounds splendid (especially in her middle register) reminds us that the killer’s family also suffers.
On purely musical terms, soprano Racette produced radiant tone, ample sound and ardent delivery as Prejean. But she has not fleshed out the character from a dramatic standpoint, her body language and facial expressions quite limited and static. Soprano Whitney Morrison, a Ryan Opera Center alum, sounds vocally sumptuous and conjures deep spirit as Sister Rose, a Prejean friend and foil.
Conductor Nicole Paiement, in her Lyric debut, drew sensitive work from the Lyric Opera Orchestra. Director Leonard Foglia found the right cadences for the opera’s heightening drama. The Chicago Children’s Choir, under the direction of Josephine Lee, brought much-needed rays of sunlight to this story. And Lyric Opera Chorus master Michael Black crafted ensemble singing of considerable ferocity, especially in the first act’s nightmarish finale.
Michael McGarty’s set design and Brian Nason’s lighting design ranged from the dark and ominous opening scene to the white-hot and terrifying execution.
In the end, “Dead Man Walking” takes us to uncomfortable places in uncommonly effective ways, luring us to its message through the luster of Heggie’s score and the ingenuity of McNally’s libretto.
Surely it will be performed for as long society opts to execute killers and dares to contemplate why.
4 stars
“Dead Man Walking” plays at the Lyric Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive, on select dates through Nov. 22; ticket prices vary; 312-827-5600 or www.lyricopera.org.
Howard Reich is a Tribune critic.
