Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking review: Strong performances from all the cast
EIGHTEEN years after it was first seen in San Francisco, Jake Heggie’s extraordinary opera Dead Man Walking has finally received its UK premiere.
Based on the book by Sister Helen Prejean it tells the Louisiana nun’s story of how she became spiritual adviser to a condemned man accused of a horrific double murder.
The book found international fame in 1995 when it was made into a film starring Susan Sarandon.
Heggie, working with librettist Terrence McNally, seized on the subject for his first opera, premiered in 2000 and now in its 60th international production.
Director Leonard Foglia’s semi-staging opens to a chilling enactment of the murders as a teenage courting couple are ambushed by two men, one of them being the condemned man Joseph De Rocher.
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The scene moves to Hope House, the mission run by the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Medaille, where Joyce DiDonato’s Sister Helen accepts De Rocher’s request to be his spiritual adviser, to the disapproval of her peers and the fury of the victims’ families.
As Sister Helen, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato makes a remarkable transition from Handel and Rossini diva roles to a cardigan-clad nun clutching her handbag as prison warders lead her past a jeering chorus of men on Death Row – the sound reminiscent of the rumblings of the ship’s crew in Britten’s Billy Budd.
Heggie’s score also draws on influences of Bernstein, American jazz and blues. A phrase from Elvis’s Jailhouse Rock is thrown in as De Rocher and Sister Helen discover a mutual love for The King.
Baritone Michael Mayes conveys a palpable sense of danger in the role of Joseph De Rocher.
As tense as a coiled spring, alternating fear and aggression, his relationship to Sister Helen is both a cry for help and a contest, as he refuses to admit his crime.
Another side is seen by his mother (Maria Zifchak) who recalls from the past her happy little son Joey.
Sister Helen’s battle for De Rocher to find redemption through love – “The truth will set you free” – leads to the final powerful images when the condemned man is strapped to the execution gurney, his arms stretched as if in crucifixion.
It is disturbing to know the practice of allowing families of victims and of the condemned man to watch the execution can actually happen.
There are strong performances from all the cast with Maria Zifchak outstanding as Joseph’s mother. Inspired playing, too, by BBC Symphony Orchestra under Mark Wigglesworth.
Dead Man Walking is part of the Barbican’s 2018 season The Art Of Change, which explores how artists respond to and can potentially effect change in the social and political landscape.
Let’s hope one of our opera companies will pick up and run with a production of this work that is so relevant to our times.
