[star rating=”5″] DEAD MAN WALKING. The Met: Live in HD series. Jake Heggie / Libretto by Terrence McNally.
MEGAN CHORITZ reviews
Dead Man Walking is American composer Jake Heggie’s compelling masterpiece, the most widely performed new opera of the last 20 years, directed by Ivo van Hove. Based on Sister Helen Prejean’s memoir about her fight for the soul of a condemned murderer, Dead Man Walking matches the high drama of its subject with Heggie’s beautiful and poignant music and a brilliant libretto by Tony and Emmy Award–winner Terrence McNally. Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes the podium, with mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato starring as Sister Helen.
The outstanding cast also features bass-baritone Ryan McKinny as the death-row inmate Joseph De Rocher, soprano Latonia Moore as Sister Rose, and legendary mezzo-soprano Susan Graham – who sang Helen Prejean in the opera’s 2000 premiere – as De Rocher’s mother.
Although I have been a long-time lover of the NT Live theatre screenings, this was my first Met opera screening. I confess I am an opera beginner, with little experience, but a developing appreciation of it. So I took an opera expert along with me to watch the screening, and he told me to look out for the dramatic raising of the Met’s chandeliers just before the houselights went out and the show began.
Everything about this production is extraordinary
And then, for the next three and a half hours, my mind was blown. Everything about this production is extraordinary. The story of Dead Man Walking is introduced with a harrowing video – the rape and murder that is the inciting incident. This is played on a set that is utterly simple and bare, but also so smoothly functional – sliding doors, revealing huge choruses of children, prisoners, and family members. Scenes shift from nunnery, to prison, to prison cell, to execution room with amazing lighting enhanced by super slick tech. The chorus scenes are beautifully choreographed, and the story articulated by a superb libretto.
I don’t know the music, and it was a little challenging and inaccessible for me in the beginning, but the performances, the characterisation, the relationships, were so beautifully performed I soon forgot they were singing, until I was shocked by the pure beauty and force of an aria. Power. Joyce DiDonato as Sister Helen is unexplainably good. She is an embodiment of character, emotion, passion and devotion. It is remarkable watching every breath, hand gesture, glance, and then she sings. She makes sound feeling. Ryan McKinny’s Joseph De Rocher is equally powerful. And the chemistry between them is a magical gift. They make each other shine. Everyone else is brilliant. It is Susan Graham’s performance as De Rocher’s mother that will haunt me for its rawness, realness and pain.
Blown away
I have loved many of director Ivo van Hove’s theatre productions, and he carries his clear theatrical vision into the staging of this opera. I could see his work, and I loved it.
I cried through the second half. I wept into the sleeve of my sweater. I struggled to contain my sobs at the end. This story of love and redemption is profound and beautiful and human and devastating. And it is opera. Blown away.
What: Dead Man Walking. The Met: Live in HD series
Where and when: Ster-Kinekor and Cinema Nouveau on 24, 25, 26, 28 November 2023 (195 minutes)
Tickets and info: Book your tickets at www.sterkinekor.com. For news and updates, go to Facebook: Ster-Kinekor Theatres
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