Gripping performances carry Central City Opera’s ‘Dead Man Walking’

CENTRAL CITY — The Central City Opera is not only known for balancing traditional standards with modern masterpieces but for winning over audiences to these newer works with outstanding productions. Saturday night’s opening of Jake Heggie’s “Dead Man Walking,” performed with the composer in attendance, was an emotionally shattering but spiritually edifying experience of a kind that is rarely repeated.

The work, composed in 2000 and based on the book by Sister Helen Prejean (who is also its central character), is already considered a classic of the repertoire, and the powerful performances of the CCO singers and orchestra emphatically confirmed this.

It does not matter what one feels about the death penalty, nor does one’s personal moral code need to enter the picture. “Dead Man Walking” attacks the soul with its profundity, but does not ask any conformity from its audience. It is most assuredly not a piece of propaganda.

Director Ken Cazan takes a minimalist approach. Although the fences depicting the prison are elegant, they are not obtrusive. The most imposing prop is the execution gurney itself, carefully reserved for the opera’s final moments. Sloping surfaces are used to great effect, as are physical depictions of literal and metaphorical separation between characters.

CCO music director John Baril leads the orchestra through Heggie’s dense but melodious score, making sure that the music’s difficulty does not draw attention to itself or away from the story and its characters. Although it sounds like a modern opera, no audience member will leave without subconsciously humming some tune or other, possibly the unforgettable hymn “He Will Gather us Around,” maybe the heaving descents of the parents’ laments, or even the restless five-note figures that open the opera and constantly return.

The company advertised an R-rating for thematic elements, but there is very little that even the most puritan audiences will find objectionable. Even the opening scene depicting the title character’s crime, while brutal, has a certain subtle sensitivity. The two interjections of the F-word barely register.

Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Rivera is instantly ingratiating as Sister Helen. She sings the feisty nun with a purity that is both strong and innocent, navigating the demanding role and the character’s complex evolution with an easy mastery. Similarly, baritone Michael Mayes is an elemental force as Joseph De Rocher, the condemned man of the title. Mayes has made this his signature role. It is physically and vocally exhausting, even without considering the way the audience must perceive the character at the beginning and at the end. Fortunately, Heggie’s music mostly takes care of that.

Mezzo-soprano Maria Zifchak, as De Rocher’s mother, moves the audience to open weeping on several occasions, including her thrilling plea to the parole board and her stoic final goodbye to her son. Soprano Jeanine De Bique, as Helen’s confidant Sister Rose, sings with great beauty, especially in her extended duet with Rivera toward the beginning of the second act.

All four singers in the roles of the victims’ parents are excellent, including tenor Joseph Gaines and sopranos Karina Brazas and Claire Shackleton, but baritone Robert Orth stands out as the murdered girl’s father, a role that could be thankless, but whose perspective is absolutely necessary.

Most of the secondary roles are also given committed performances, including baritone Thomas Hammons as a sympathetic warden and tenor Jason Baldwin (familiar to Boulder audiences from CU Opera’s recent “La Bohème”) as the self-righteous Father Grenville, the prison chaplain. Also deserving mention are Stephen David Daniel and Evan Bravos as a pair of prison guards who function like a Greek chorus at times, John David Nevergall in the brief comic role of a motorcycle cop, along with James Dornier and Evan Domagala as De Rocher’s younger half-brothers.

Finally, Heggie’s wonderful choral writing should be mentioned, be it a chorus of nuns, death row inmates, or children. The CCO ensemble, including members of the Colorado Children’s Chorale, is in top form throughout.