★★★★★
This is an opera for our age, as likely to intrigue fans of the true-crime podcast Serial and Louis Theroux documentaries about the underbelly of the US as it is devotees of Verdi and Puccini. It’s based on the true story of Joseph De Rocher, a death-row convict, and Sister Helen, a nun who becomes his spiritual adviser. The composer Jake Heggie asks big questions: is the death penalty ever valid? Are some people inherently bad? And, crucially, how do we forgive the darkest deeds?
In truth, the opera has flaws — but then so does Beethoven’s Fidelio. And if ever there were an instance of a stellar cast making a work of art greater than the sum of its parts, of the